Perhaps the sport climber was showing solidarity with the Iranian women who are risking their lives by continuing to protest against the regime’s strict dress code. Perhaps she demonstrated herself as well. She was hailed as a hero. But now Elnaz Rekabi regrets that she has caused so much fuss by representing Iran in South Korea without a hijab. Rekabi explained to Iranian state TV that she was “suddenly called to the climbing wall and was busy preparing both climbing equipment and shoes”. Thus, she forgot to put on the hijab properly. Now she has been brought home to Tehran and is back in the fold. Once at home, she was nevertheless met with cheers and applause when she arrived at the airport in Tehran. CHEERS: Iranian climber Elnaz Rekabi was met with cheers when she arrived at the airport in Tehran. But what happens next with the sportswoman? The Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari, who himself was put in the notorious Evin prison in 2009, fears that Rekabi could also end up there – along with other opposition and political prisoners. That’s what IranWire, the online newspaper he founded, writes. SURROUNDED BY THE REGIME’S MEN: In the photo from Wednesday, Iran’s Sports Minister Hamid Sajjadi poses with Elnaz Rekabi, he to her right. Rekabi returned to Tehran yesterday after competing in South Korea without wearing a hijab. It is believed to be a support for those who demonstrate against the regime and the dress code. Photo: AP Giving up on Iran Elnaz Rekabi is by no means the first athlete to gain attention. Many Iranian sportswomen have left Iran in protest against the hijab compulsion. CAUSED A STORM: The fact that Elnaz Rekab represented Iran without covering her hair caused strong reactions in Iran. She was both praised and put in her place. Photo: RHEA KANG / AFP Chess talent Dorsa Derakhshani won several gold medals in the Asian Junior Chess Championships. But in 2017 there was a stop. Then she played in the Gibraltar chess festival without covering her hair. Derakhshani was kicked out of the Iran Chess Federation. She responded by leaving Iran for the United States. In the New York Times, she wrote about how the Iranian Chess Federation had constantly criticized her for wearing too tight jeans and showing too much hair. CHESS CHAMPION: Dorsa Derakhshani played chess championship in France without covering her hair. When she heard rumors that she would be arrested upon her return, she chose to stay in Europe. Photo: CAMERA PRESS/Ophelia Wynne / MEGA / Mega – They were more concerned with what I was wearing than with my brain and how I played chess. That’s why I moved, explains the chess master. – But I miss my family every single day, and the pain of not knowing when I will see them again will never go away, she writes. First Olympic medal Teakwandoo athlete Kimia Alizadeh Zonouzi made history when she became the first Iranian female athlete to win an Olympic medal for Iran at the Summer Olympics in Rio in 2016. After the victory, state media showed her non-stop to show that the hijab does not limit Iranian women. But in 2020, the taekwondo champion left Iran in protest against the regime’s poor treatment of female athletes. HISTORIC OLYMPIC WINNER: Kimia Alizadeh Zonouzi was Iran’s first female Olympic medal winner. Now she is part of the Olympic refugee team. Here she is celebrating after defeating Jade Jones from Team Great Britain during the women’s -57 kg Taekwondo Round of 16 competition at the Tokyo Olympics last year. Photo: Maja Hitij / Getty Images On Instagram, she wrote in her farewell to Iran: – I am one of millions of oppressed women. I dressed as they required. I said what they said I should say. They used my medals to promote Islamic hijab. I wasn’t important to them. None of us are. We are just their tools. – Now I want to live and suffer in exile, because I no longer want to participate in the hypocrisy. But this decision is more difficult than winning Olympic gold, because I will always be a child of Iran. She moved to Germany, where she was selected for the Olympic refugee team during the 2020 Summer Olympics. Iran’s showcase Major international sporting events are a showcase for the Islamic Republic. There they can show off Iran’s ideological values and principles, writes the researcher Shahrzad Enderle, who is connected to the German University of Freiburg. One of Iran’s scribes, Grand Ayatollah Javadi-e Aoly, said of female athletes like the Teakwandoo champion: “It is wrong for us to assume that the integrity of a woman is shown by stretching a leg, beating someone and getting a medal for us! A woman’s integrity is shown when she becomes a mother and cares for her child”. For a long time, Iran banned women from participating internationally in sports such as swimming, gymnastics and water polo because the dress codes did not allow these activities. The regime has also put obstacles in the way for the many girls who are football fans. To their dismay, they are not even allowed to sit in the stands during football matches, as we saw in the Iranian film “Offside”. Boxer Sadaf Khedem is the first female boxer to compete in international competitions for Iran since the revolution in 1979. It takes courage to choose this sport when you are an Iranian woman, but Khedem did not give up. In 2019, she won a match in France. WITH THE GLOVES ON: Sadaf Khadem trains in Royan, in the west of France, where she has moved. In 2019, she became the first Iranian woman to participate in an official boxing match. And that without covering the hair. Photos are from 3 October this year. She supports the demonstrations in her home country. Photo: ROMAIN PERROCHEAU / AFP When she was scheduled to return home, she and her coach jumped off, because they heard that Iran had allegedly issued an arrest warrant, because she had broken the dress code. Sadaf Khedem stayed in the French coastal town of Royan, where she has established herself as a boxer and now also as a personal trainer. For the first time since 2019, she talks about the situation in Iran, upset by the death of Mahsa Amini. – I am not a hardened feminist, but human rights are very important to me, she tells Arab News. Sadaf Khedem, Kimia Alizadeh Zonouzi and Dorsa Derakhshani are just a few of a number of female athletes who gave up representing Iran with all the limitations it entailed for them. SWIMMERS FOR KHASAKSTAN: Maryam Sheikhalizadeh became the first female swimmer from Iran to qualify for an Olympics. But demands for hijab wear and Iranian dress codes meant that she has chosen to represent Kazakhstan instead, as in the Tokyo Olympics. Here she is competing in the Turkish city of Konya in 2021. Photo: Wikipedia Support from female foreign ministers Canada’s foreign minister, Melanie Joly, says she and 14 other female foreign ministers will have a meeting to discuss the situation of women and human rights in Iran. The aim is to coordinate efforts towards Iran’s clergy. – My colleagues and I will gather to send a clear message: the Iranian regime must end all forms of violence and persecution against the Iranian people, including their brutal aggression against women in particular, Joly said, according to The Guardian.
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Several female athletes have left Iran – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
