Concern persists over the fate of an Iranian sportswoman, Elnaz Rekabi, who participated without a veil in the Asian climbing championships in South Korea, a gesture seen as a sign of solidarity with the demonstrations in Iran.
Elnaz Rekabi, 33, wore a bandana during the bouldering event and a headband showing his hair during a second event, according to footage released by the International Climbing Federation.
The competition, where she placed fourth, took place on Sunday, a month to the day after the death of Mahsa Amini arrested in Tehran for “wearing inappropriate clothes” due to a veil insufficiently covering her hair in view of the morality police and sparked a wave of protests across the country.
Sport has become an extremely sensitive topic in Iran since these protests, with several prominent Iranian sportswomen speaking out in favor of women’s rights. Famous footballers have also come under fire for comments about the move, such as soccer legend Ali Daei, who had his passport briefly confiscated.
In her first comment since Sunday, Elnaz Rekabi presented on her Instagram account, which has more than 200,000 subscribers, “apologies for the concern” she may have caused and assures that the decision to remove her veil was “not intentional” but motivated by the call to perform the test earlier than planned.
The Islamic Republic imposes on Iranian sportswomen the wearing of the veil even in competitions abroad.
Supporters on the social networks of the protest had described Ms. Rekabi as a “heroine”, publishing images of her escalation accompanied by the slogan of the mobilization “woman, life, freedom”.
Under pressure ?
“I am currently on my way back to Iran with the team according to the planned schedule”, announces the interested party on Instagram. But the circumstances of the release of this statement have raised many questions as unconfirmed reports have reported pressure on Elnaz Rekabi from Iranian officials in South Korea.
The BBC in Persian quoted an unnamed source as saying her friends failed to reach her and the team left their hotel in Seoul on Monday, two days earlier than planned.
His mobile phone and his passport were confiscated, according to the same source.
The Iran Wire news site reports that the president of the Iranian climbing federation allegedly lured her to the Iranian embassy to drive her directly to the airport.
He would have promised Elnaz Rekabi that she could return safely to Iran on condition that she handed over her phone and passport, according to the media.
But Iran’s embassy in Seoul denied “all false information and misinformation” about her situation and said she left South Korea with her teammates on Tuesday, according to a statement to AFP.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has indicated that it is “aware” of this case and warned that it will “follow it very carefully”, according to a statement by one of its spokespersons, Ravina Shamdasani. , in Geneva.
“Women should never be sued for what they wear. They should never suffer violations of their rights such as arbitrary detention or any form of violence because of what they wear,” she said.
Elnaz Rekabi is the second Iranian known to have participated unveiled in a sports competition since the advent of the Islamic Republic in 1979, after the boxer Sadaf Khadem in 2019, exiled in France since.
The Iranian news agency Fars, which expresses the more authoritarian tendencies of the regime, denounced without naming it the attitude of Elnaz Rekabi in an editorial published on Tuesday.
The author wonders why the “Western, Zionist and Saudi” media ignored the performances of veiled Iranian sportswomen to “highlight those of a woman with unconventional behavior”.