The Leftist intelligentsia is very concerned to protect the rights of Muslim women in the U.S. who wish to wear hijab. Very well. No one should harass any woman who chooses to wear hijab. But will they stand with Shiva Amini? Do they have any sense of solidarity with her? Or would supporting a woman who doesn’t wear hijab be “Islamophobic”?
“Female Iranian footballer is kicked out of the national team after she is seen playing without a hijab in Switzerland,” by Gareth Davies, Mailonline, April 27, 2017 (thanks to Marozia):
A female Iranian football has been kicked out of the national team for playing without a hijab while on a personal trip to Switzerland.
Shiva Amini was on holiday when she took part in a kick-about with a group of men and officials from the Iranian Futsal Federation waded through her social media accounts to find a picture of her playing in a pair of shorts and without a headscarf.
The veil has been a mandatory dress requirement for women in Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and officials suspended her from the national team.
Speaking out against the decision, the footballer said sport is more important than any veil.
‘The hijab should be an unimportant issue for us, the female players,’ she said.
‘However for the officials of the country, it seems to be a deal-breaker.
‘I received a note from the federation to say not only had I played without a veil, but also I dared to play with boys.
‘So I was disqualified and I was removed from the national team.
‘I was told this behaviour would cause me a lot of headaches at home.’
She also hit out at certain individuals who had previously supported her and the team.
She said people were on their side when they were winning medals and matches, but that they had turned their back on her and the squad by not coming out to criticise the decision.
‘Silence is betrayal of ourselves,’ Amini said.
The athlete talked to Iranian journalist Masig Alinejad, an activist behind My Stealthy Freedom, and said: ‘They were not even official games where I had to represent the Islamic Republic.
‘The officials of the Iranian Futsal Federation told me, ‘”When you are a member of an official team, you do not have the right to play without the veil even in non-official games abroad. We are living in an Islamic country. Why did you have to play with boys? You would have been disqualified from the team even if you had played with boys wearing a veil in Iran”.’
In February, two promising chess-playing siblings were banned from tournaments in Iran after the sister failed to wear a hijab and her brother played an Israeli.
Dorsa and Borna Derakhshani, two of the country’s leading youth chess players, were told they can no longer be part of the national team.
Dorsa, an 18-year-old student in Spain, was banned after she did not wear a head covering during the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival earlier this year.
Her 15-year-old brother, Borna, who still lives in Iran, was told he couldn’t compete after playing a match against Israeli chess player Alexander Husman during the same tournament.
A month later, Iran has banned some of its female competitors from billiard competitions for a year for violating the Islamic codes of conduct at a tournament in China.
The Disciplinary Committee of Bowling, Billiard and Boxing Federation did not reveal the nature of the alleged offences, saying it would name the transgressors later.
‘Women sent to China Open (billiard) competitions will be banned from all domestic and foreign competitions for one year for violating the Islamic code,’ it said. …