For the price of a dress error, exile. According to the spanish newspaper El País and Reuters news agency, Iranian chess player Sarasadat Khademalsharieh – also known as Sara Khadem – has decided to move to Spain amid fears of reprisals in her country after she was photographed without a veil during a competition in Almaty , in Kazakhstan, at the end of December 2022.
As soon as these images were broadcast, the Iranian chess federation was quick to distance itself from the protesting player. The decision to appear bareheaded is interpreted by the regime and its opponents as a sign of support for the protests that have shaken the country since the death, on September 16, 2022, of the young Kurdish Mahsa Amini after her arrest in Tehran by the police. manners, on the grounds of a supposed violation of the strict dress code that the power imposes on women.
Thus, Sara Khadem would have “participated in a personal capacity and at his own expense” at the tournament, Hassan Tamini, director of the Iranian Chess Federation, told the Fars news agency quoted by Agence France-Presse on December 28. “Khademalsharieh did not participate in these competitions through the federation. She went there independently”he insisted.
Accommodation in Spain
At this stage, the champion has not spoken publicly and does not respond to journalists, according to New York Times. Among the rare testimonies available, Reuters quotes a relative who, on condition of anonymity, reported threatening phone calls against the player after her gesture, and the presence of four bodyguards in front of her hotel room in Kazakhstan.
According to El País, which is based on two anonymous sources in her entourage, Sara Khadem and her family have accommodation in Spain, which could allow her to reside there legally with her husband and their ten-month-old child under the “golden visas” which are issued to non-European foreigners holding real estate worth more than 500,000 euros. The other hypothesis is that she files an asylum application.
The newspaper states that the player’s husband has a Canadian passport. Ardeshir Ahmadi, producer, director and television presenter, is a well-known documentary filmmaker of Iranian pop and rap, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (Hranah). According to this agency and the New York Timeshe was imprisoned in Iran for three months, in 2015. The charges against him are not known, but the Evin prison where he was held in Tehran, according to Hrana, hosts many political opponents.
“I hope things will change”
Aged 25, Sara Khadem, seventeenth player in the world, was born in Tehran. In one interview with YouTube channel PowerPlayChess in 2014, during the Olympiad in Tromso, Norway, she says she learned chess from the age of 8, thanks to a coach, because her family was not familiar with the game. She assimilates chess has a ” art “ and quote as his “hero” Russian champion Garry Kasparov, whom she says she has met many times.
Iran has a long history of producing excellent chess players, but the constraints the regime places on them sometimes encourage them to leave their country. Alireza Firouzja, 19 years old and fourth player in the world, settled in France, from which he obtained the nationality in 2021, relates The Parisian. He stopped competing under the banner of Iran because his original federation forbade its members to face Israeli or American adversaries, which forced them to lose by forfeit.
After his defection, the young man had obtained the public support of Sara Khadem. In one interview with ChessBaseIndiashe judged ” shame “ that the champion had to come to this to practice his sport, while considering that he was making the right decision for the rest of his career. “I hope things will change in Iran because I don’t want to see this happen to other players,” she added. According to El Paísthis position had already turned the regime against her.
Challenge Marks
In January 2020, as told by Guardian, it was a well-known Iranian chess arbiter, Shohreh Bayat, who had decided to move to the UK, for fear of facing retaliation in Iran after appearing unveiled during a competition in China. In 2017, Dorsa Derakhshani, a female international grandmaster, moved to the United States after participating, without a hijab, in a competition in Gibraltar.
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Player
Beyond the small world of chess, Iranian sportswomen have redoubled their marks of defiance against the wearing of the veil since the death of Mahsa Amini. In November, archer Parmida Ghassemi distinguished herself at the award ceremony at the end of a competition organized in Tehran. On a video shared onlineshe was seen refusing the help of a comrade to put her scarf back in place.
پارمیدا قاسمی ، کماندار رشرو تیم ملی ایران ، در مراسم اهدای مدال ال اختتامیه لیگ تیروکمان جام خلیج فان ت…
The athlete had however later declared that he had inadvertently dropped his hijab. Before her, the climber Elnaz Rekabi made similar comments after appearing without her veil, replaced by a simple headband, during the Asian Climbing Championships in Seoul in October. These excuse-like explanations are not considered sincere by most opponents, who interpret them as the result of pressure exerted against these women by the authorities.