Female Iranian athletes at the Olympics

At this Olympics, the first ever Iranian women flag bearer was seen.  Archer Zahra Nemati carried the Iranian flag into the Maracana Stadium on Friday.  She lead out the mostly male team.  Of the 63 total Olympic athletes that Iran has sent to Rio, only nine of them are women.

But Darya Safai, founder and creator of a campaign ‘Let Iranian women enter their stadiums’, was asked to leave the stadium during the Iranian mens volleyball match as she held up a sign and wore a t-shirt with the slogan – Let Iranian women enter their stadiums.

She told The Independent: “They said us they didn’t want the sign in front of the cameras and they asked us to leave. They even tried to impress me with military people.   This is not the first time I had this experience, but I won’t give up because that’s what Iranian women do, they keep fighting for their rights.  The Olympic Spirit, which is against discrimination, is what Iranian women need in their country.  It should the right of everyone, men AND women, to attend a sports game. It is a pity that women have to travel to Brazil to watch and cheer for their national team.”

In Iran, where strict interpretations of Islamic norms are enforced, female fans are traditionally barred from attending male-only sporting events.  Last year it was reported that the deputy sports and youth minister, Abdolhamid Ahmad, was calling for a more “family-oriented” atmosphere at stadiums that would allow women to attend most major sporting events. Subsequently, Shahindakht Molavardi, the deputy minister for women’s and family affairs, said the government had “confirmed” it would allow women to attend volleyball matches, but added the plans had not yet been “approved.”

So what about women trying to compete in sports?  As reported in The Guardian last year – attention to women’s sports began during the presidency of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who appointed his daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, head of the Women’s Sports Organization and deputy chair of Iran’s Olympics Committee. During this period, several sports facilities were allocated for women, and the first games for women of the Islamic countries were held in Tehran. Although the games failed to catch on in the long term, they helped generate an unprecedented interest in women’s competitive sports.

Women can partake in a number of sports including countrywide leagues in soccer, basketball, volleyball, squash, kabaddi, and close to 200 other sports including in all varieties of martial arts and race car driving.

But there are still limitations – last year the Iranian futsal team captain, Niloufar Ardalan, missed a tournament in Malaysia as her husband refused to let her leave the country.  Under Iranian law, a woman cannot leave the country without her husbands permission.

Image credit – Jamie Squire/Getty Images