Women’s Entry into Stadiums and Continued Opposition from Religious Authorities; Deputy Judiciary Chief Sets Two Conditions

Conservatives in Iran continue to oppose women’s presence in stadiums, and a senior judicial official has set two conditions for women’s attendance at sporting events.

The deputy of Iran’s Islamic Republic’s judiciary has once again announced conditions for women’s entry into stadiums to watch men’s competitions. Hadi Sadeghi said on Sunday, December 2nd, to the Islamic Republic’s official news agency IRNA, that women’s entry into stadiums is permissible if two conditions are met, including respecting women’s dignity and athletes being properly covered.

Previously, the judiciary spokesman had made similar statements last month about women entering stadiums, but following the selective entry of a group of women into Azadi Stadium to watch the AFC Club Championship final match, Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi, among traditional clerics and Shiite authorities, strongly criticized the matter.

Nevertheless, Hadi Sadeghi on Sunday outlined the conditions for freely allowing women into stadiums and said that to remove obstacles, the government and clubs must manage to ensure that insulting slogans are not chanted in stadiums when women are present. He also said that seeing the body of a non-mahram person is forbidden in Islam, and there is a solution to remove this obstacle as well.

The Ministry of Sports and the Iran Football Federation, following pressure from FIFA and efforts by civil activists in recent months, have selectively provided conditions for a number of women to enter the stadium in several matches, but this action faced strong criticism from religious and judicial officials of the Islamic Republic on one hand, and on the other hand, FIFA’s Human Rights Committee called it propaganda.

The Islamic Republic has prohibited women from entering stadiums for nearly four decades to watch men’s football matches. This is while FIFA has prohibited any form of gender discrimination in its principles.

Protest against the ban on Iranian women’s presence in stadiums where men compete, including football, has repeatedly made headlines in recent years and has generated many international reactions.

Human Rights Watch had previously asked the officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran to ensure that women and girls can watch all men’s sporting competitions in the country.

Last summer, during the World Cup competitions, a group of prominent Iranian women in a letter to the International Football Federation (FIFA) called on the federation to ask the Iranian government to end the discriminatory ban against women’s entry into stadiums.

Source: Voice of America