Australia is taking part in a major international sporting event that kicks off today in in the capital of Iran, Tehran.
The 2015 Asian Volleyball Championship will run until 8 August, and is expected to attract tens of thousands of cheering spectators from all around the world.
All sounds pretty exciting, right?
Well, hold your applause — because women won’t even be allowed to even attend the event. In a clear instance of discrimination, Iranian authorities last year implemented a ban on Iranian women and girls attending certain events including men’s volleyball matches.
Last year, the ban led to the arrest of 26-year-old Iranian-British female student Ghoncheh Ghavami and several other protesters, who attempted to enter a stadium in protest of the ban. Ghavami was still detained for around five months before being released, and is still unable to leave Iran.
Those outrageous arrests prompted the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB; the Federation is known by its French acronym) to announce its commitment to “inclusivity and the right of women to participate in sport on an equal basis.”
In April of this year, the FIVB also declared that it would “not award Iran hosting rights to any FIVB controlled events while women were banned from sporting events in the country.”
Despite those bold promises, however, the FIVB has so far failed to penalise Iran or publicly speak out against the ban.
And while Iranian officials have issued conflicting statements regarding whether they would lift such restrictions in part or whole, the Iranian Students’ News Agency last month reported that the “entry of all women to the Azadi Sports Complex during the World League matches has been prohibited”.
Australia originally bid to host this 2015 Asia tournament, but lost the bid to Iran — making the whole discriminatory incident even more jarring for Australian supporters of human rights.
Iran’s ban — and global volleyball authorities’ failure to compel Iranian authorities to lift that prohibition — have been harshly criticised by international human rights groups.
Australia Director of Human Rights Watch Elaine Pearson told Mamamia the Asian Volleyball Confederation should insist Iranian authorities let women attend.
“Women in Iran face discrimination in many aspects of their daily lives, and stopping women from watching sporting events is symptomatic of much larger discriminatory policies in Iran,” Pearson said.
“International sporting bodies like the Asian Volleyball Confederation have the freedom to choose where to hold these events, and on what terms.
“Non-discrimination is a basic tenet under the Olympic charter for all sporting competitions. The Asia Volleyball Confederation should insist that Iranian authorities let women and men watch the games or else don’t have any spectators at all,” said Pearson.
“Volleyball Australia and the team going to Iran should ask the Asia Volleyball Confederation if they are truly committed to the principle of non-discrimination in sport then why are they holding the tournament in Iran? Will the Asia Volleyball Federation just look the other way as Iran excludes and discriminates against women?”
Iranian authorities have banned women and girls from stadiums hosting football matches for decades, but only recently extended the ban to volleyball—in flagrant violation of the principle of gender non-discrimination in sports, according to Human Rights Watch.
So will Iranian women continue to be banned from public sporting events in their own country?
We certainly hope we’ll see some change soon. But the ball is now in the Asian Volleyball Confederation’s court…
There has been an incredible backlash to the ban on social media, with the hashtag #LetWomenGoToStadium uniting women around the world. Here are some of the images from that online campaign:
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Top Comments
And yet when any of us comment about how concerned we are about Islam and Muslims in Australia we are told we are prejudiced. Oh but that's right these countries even though they say they are Muslim aren't the "real Muslims" who are wonderfully enlightened about gender equality.
Don't get me wrong there are a lot of people in these countries trapped by an ideology that they detest, and I don't have an objection to people who want to escape this backward sexist crap wanting to come here, but it really bugs me when they want to hang on to this backward sexist religion when they get here. And it never occurs to them that maybe why so much of the Middle East is a mess is because of this religion and they want to flee to our "infidel" paradise without examine the possibility that maybe the reason we do have a paradise here is because we are "infidel".
I know now I will get a million responses from people saying Islam is a religion of peace and practices equality, and the governments and people of Saudia Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria etc aren't real Muslims, even though they say they are, no the fact that all this extremely sexist crap goes on these countries with Muslim governments and a majority of Muslim people is just a coincidence, and they are just liars anyway when they say they are Muslims because they are not.
And what makes me really upset, is that the left wing who always looked after the downtrodden and oppressed have chosen to take sides with the oppressors of women, the Muslims. Every leftie who thinks they are being open minded by supporting Muslim rights eg to wear a burqa hijab etc don't you realise how many women you oppress, the women who are too terrified to speak out or not to wear the hijab , when you agree with their oppressors these women become more oppressed and you naively think that by supporting the oppressors you are being "tolerant", when all you are doing is playing right into their hands.