By Jubin Katiraie
The Iranian Sports Federation is forcing female ice climber, Zeinab Kobra Mosavi, not to take part in the championships.
Mosavi, who took silver at the Asian Championships, is currently one of the top 10 ice climbers in Iran and one of the best ice climbers in the world.
However, as she left her profession, she noted that she faced a lot of obstacles to her career in Iran, including:
- the lack of support from the Sports Federation of Iran
- the Sports Federation’s gendered and masculine viewpoints
- lack of support from the Iran Mountaineering and Sport Climbing Federation
- the lack of a dedicated gym for the sport
- the federation’s efforts to prevent her independent trips to international competitions
Mosavi said: “I started 2020 with a lot of energy and hope to be the first Iranian woman to embark on the global ice climbing platform. There were only two other contests and tournaments left for me to reach the global level, but the federation did not allow me to leave. They didn’t even let me go to the tournament independently. All the times and days I spent practicing without a coach was in vain.”
Describing the Sports Federation’s latest attempt to remove her as an athlete, Mosavi said that they invited her to the federation when she discovered that they’d filed a disciplinary case against her.
She said: “I think there’s nothing worse than filing a case for a professional athlete.”
Mosavi had started out doing gymnastics at age six, before moving onto ice climbing professionally after completing her studies in theology.
Other female athletes forced out
Of course, Mosavi is not the first female Iranian athlete to be forced out of her sport in recent months because of the mullahs’ misogynistic policies.
Iranian chess Grandmaster, Mitra Hejazipour was expelled from the national team for flouting the mandatory hijab laws, which means that she did not wear a veil during the World Chess Championship. (Chess Grandmaster and International Master, Dorsa Derakhshani, who was expelled for the same reason in 2017 now plays for the US team.)
Taekwondo Olympic medalist Kimia Alizadeh and Taekwondo Asian Games runner-up Parisa Farshidi have both applied for asylum in Germany.
Kimia wrote: “Let me finally introduce my previously censored identity. I’m one of the millions of oppressed women in Iran. I had to wear whatever I was told to wear; I had to say whatever I was told to say. They [the authorities] even claimed my medals and victories were because of their oppressive dress code and hijab. They attributed my successes to their management and tact.”
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