Women aren't even allowed to watch this International sporting event.

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.

ثابت كنيد منشور حقوق شهروندى تنها تبليغات نبود، عمل كنيد @HassanRouhani #LetWomenGoToStadium pic.twitter.com/WSSIPn5Zyt

— Aida Ghajar (@aidaghajar) June 26, 2015

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.

#LetWomenGoToStadium pic.twitter.com/VDN7kiyagw

— Slater Bakhtavar (@slaterbakh) July 4, 2015

“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:

You may also like…

What I need to say to the columnist who said women’s sport is ‘inferior and boring.’

When will the bad news end for women’s sport in Australia?

‘Don’t just be good – look good,’ sportswomen are told.