Female athletes drop Iranian events due to headscarf rule
Soumya Swaminathan is a female chess star, a former world junior girls’ champion, and the 97th best female chess player in the world.
She is also the 4th best female chess player in India. However, Swaminathan has recently refused to participate in the 2018 Asian Team Chess Championship. This championship will be held in from July 26th to August 4th in Hamadan, Iran.
She has refused to participate because of the rule in Iran that makes it compulsory for all women to wear headscarves.
Swaminathan said that this rule violated her personal rights, and therefore, she will not be participating in the 2018 Asian Team Chess Championship.
Swaminathan wrote her refusal on her Facebook page. She said that she found the Iranian law of compulsory headscarf wearing for women to be a direct violation of her basic human rights.
These include her rights to freedom of expression, freedom of thought, freedom of conscience, and freedom of religion.
Swaminathan said that, under the present circumstances, the only way for her to protect her human rights is to refuse to go to Iran at all.
Ever since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, it has been mandatory for women to wear headscarves in public places.
Additionally, women are only allowed to show their face, hands, and feet in public. They are also only supposed to wear modest colors.
This is not the first time that an athlete has pulled out of an event over this very same issue. In 2016, top Indian shooter Heena Sidhu withdrew from the Asian Air Gun meet in Iran.
Sidhu withdrew from the event for the same reason as Swaminathan. Swaminathan herself is very disappointed that the rights of the players are seen as less important than Iran’s religiously-based laws.
She always feels honored to represent India in the country’s National Team, and she regrets having to withdraw from this year’s championship. However, she feels that it is the only thing she can do to protect her basic human rights.
Image Credit: Wolfgang Jekel / CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
You may also like
Image Reference: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:London_Chess_Classic_2016_Day5-25_(31834273486).jpg
Recent Posts
- Effective strategies for parenting a child with ADHDWhen parenting teens with ADHD, it’s important to shift from directing to collaborating.
- SBI Green Rupee Term Deposit: A sustainable investmentSBI offers competitive interest rates under the SGRTD scheme, rewarding customers who invest in sustainability.
- OFMK junior technician recruitment 2025The selected candidates will be placed at OFMK’s manufacturing facility in Telangana and will receive a monthly salary of ₹21,000.
- Effective strategies for parenting a child with ADHD
What’s new at WeRIndia.com
News from 700+ sources
-
Did Mobs Came Out Of Air: BJPs Rejoinder To Mamatas Divide And Rule Charge In Riot-Hit Bengal
-
‘Supreme Court Is Going Beyond Its Limits’: BJP MP Nishikant Dubeys Outburst Sparks Political Storm, Party Calls It Personal View
-
TGSRTC will soon fill 3038 vacancies: Ponnam Prabhakar
-
Sai Manogna of Guntur emerges topper from Andhra Pradesh in JEE Mains 2025
-
This country has fourth largest gold reserves in the world, but does not have a single gold mine, it is…, not UAE, Iran, US, South Africa
-
Four Faridabad police personnel injured in attack by arrested man’s relatives
-
WeRIndia – A News Aggregator
Visit werindia.com for all types of National | Business | World | Politics | Entertainment | Health related news and much more..
Leave a Reply