Soumya Swaminathan, the Indian chess champion has withdrawn from an international competition being held in Iran, saying a rule requiring her to wear a headscarf would violate her human rights.
Soumya Swaminathan ranks fifth in India and was preparing to compete in the Asian chess championship in Bangladesh. However, when the competition was moved to Iran, the 29-year-old withdrew from the competition.
She thinks that religion should have no place in a secular activity like sports, and wearing a headscarf mandatorily as per Iranian rules would violates her human rights.
Iran has been battling the parochial curse of gender discrimination on a rampant level. Iranian women are stoned to death for speaking to men outside their family, and recently, a woman in Iran was jailed for two years for removing her headscarf in public.
Image Credit: unwatch
There is a subtle revolution going on in Iran, with more than 30 incidents of women taking off their hijab in the last six months, as a mark of defiance against the law. Women showing their hair in public in Iran are usually sentenced to far shorter terms of two months or less, and fined $25.
Iranian law, in place since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, stipulates that all women, Iranian or foreign, Muslim or non-Muslim, must be fully veiled in public at all times.
Last year, Iranian chess player Dorsa Derakhshani moved to the US and joined the US team after she was barred from her homeland’s team for refusing to wear a headscarf during a match in Gibraltar.
Though there is a reduction in the moral policing, the religious authorities take this sign as a sign of intolerance and corruption. It is time, that Iran catch up with times, and do away with such medieval rules. And yet, most religious and state authorities think that by allowing women to wear the veil loosely and by allowing them to drive are enough liberties. They think that women should not ask for rights, as it corrupts the society.
And we should be proud of Soumya, who set aside her competition for the larger issue of women’s rights.
Read Also:Â A Chess Board That Comes To Life
