Iran allows women to watch volleyball – but not football, swimming or wrestling
Araz News: A limited number will be allowed into the stadiums of Tehran as part of a move to lift a ban on women at male sporting events. But some sports remain strictly off limits.
Iran is to allow a limited number of women to attend volleyball games as part of a move to lift the ban on female spectators at sporting events, following an international outcry over the jailing of a British-Iranian woman who attempted to watch a match.
The women will be permitted to watch Volleyball World League games in Tehran later this month, a senior government official told the Associated Press, in what is apparently a trial before a broader removal of the ban.
But while women will be allowed into stadiums to watch men’s matches in some sports, including volleyball, basketball, handball and tennis, others, such as football, swimming and wrestling, will remain strictly off limits.
Shahindokht Molaverdi, vice president for women and family affairs in the cabinet of President Hassan Rouhani, said the government hopes to avoid a confrontation with hard-liners over the issue.
“I guess a limited number of women, mainly families of national team players, will watch the (coming) volleyball games,” said Mrs Molaverdi. “If it practically happens a few times, the concerns will be completely removed and it will be proven that allowing women to watch men’s sports matches is not problematic.
“Necessary measures need to be taken in order not to spread concern. This is an issue that can be easily managed so that it would not turn into a predicament.”
Vice President for Women and Family Affairs Shahindokht Molaverdi (AP)
Women have been banned from sporting events since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, though foreign women are permitted to attend matches of their national teams. Senior clerics have opposed the presence of female spectators on the grounds that they may be exposed to foul language from the crowd and to the sight of male bodies in revealing clothing.
The ban drew worldwide attention last year over the detention of Ghoncheh Ghavami, a British Iranian woman who tried to attend a men’s volleyball match between Iran and Italy. In a case which prompted Prime Minister David Cameron to personally appeal to the Iranian leader, Miss Ghavami was sentenced to a year in prison for “propagating against the ruling system,” but was freed on bail in November pending an appeal.
The International Volleyball Federation (FIVB), which oversees world volleyball games, said Miss Ghavami’s detention demonstrated “the need to give men and women worldwide equal rights to participate in sport.”
The authorities have already begun to test reactions to the move, last week allowing a handful of women to attend a basketball match in the capital, which passed by uneventfully. However some conservatives have warned they will mount a protest to prevent women entering a June 19 match in Tehran between the Iranian national volleyball team and the US team.
But Mrs Molaverdi suggested that female spectators could have a positive influence on sporting events by reining in swearing and uncouth behaviour.
“Women’s presence and getting families into stadiums will create a sense of formality that can definitely moderate the atmosphere of stadiums and give it a moral spirit,” she said.
Reprinted from telegraph.
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