MADRID, July 26 (Reuters) - An Iranian chess player who moved to Spain in January after she competed without a hijab and had an arrest warrant issued against her at home has been granted Spanish citizenship, Spain said on Wednesday.
Sarasadat Khademalsharieh, better known as Sara Khadem, took part in the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships held in Kazakhstan in late December without the headscarf that is mandatory under Iran’s strict Islamic dress codes.
Laws enforcing mandatory hijab-wearing became a flashpoint during the unrest that swept Iran when a 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, died in the custody of the morality police in mid-September.
The 26-year-old has told Reuters she had no regrets over her gesture in support of the protest movement against her country’s clerical leadership.
Spain’s official gazette said the cabinet approved granting Khadem citizenship on Tuesday “taking into account the special circumstances” of her case.
I guess she’s a Spanish chess player now. And that’s how brain drain works.
A very gifted programmer I met from Iran had to do the same. Originally from Iran, he wanted to marry a girl from Myanmar. This was forbidden for some reason so they said “fuck it, let’s go to where there is loads of tech jobs”. I was working in the Netherlands at the time when I met them. He’s now flourishing in the open source software space over there. Brain drain 100%.
Actually there is no problem to marry someone from a different country. The problem is you cannot marry with a non-muslim person, so he/she should accept Islam first. 😟😄 weird like many other rules! I don’t know if other religions have such restrictions or not, I would be happy to hear if someone knows.
The problem is you cannot marry with a non-muslim person, so he/she should accept Islam first.
I’m a muslim and as far as I know, there’s no law that forbid you to marry non-muslim. There’s many muslim clerics or saints who are marry a non-muslim in history of Islam.
But to do that, first you need to have a really strong faith so your partner in future will slowly understand and accept Islam by her/his own will. The common understanding that seems to not marry a non-muslim by many muslims because is not an easy path to have a relationship with different faith. Especially family and tradition on both side.
The most common cases about this are men muslim married a woman non-muslim. On the opposite, is very rare cases that happen in history of Islam. Some (fiqh) law by clerics forbids woman muslim to married a men non-muslim, and some allowed that with requirement the woman need to have a strong faith first.
I have many friends who’s their parents married with different religion (islam and christian, islam and shinto, islam and confucius). I admit is not an easy path than married with same religion as far I can see in my own cases, but I respect their choice…
Imagine not being able to return ‘home’ because you took your hat off. 🤔
I hope her friends and family wont catch any retribution for her ‘escaping’ shitty islamic justice
Imagine not being able to return ‘home’ because you took your hat off. 🤔
I never quite realized just how pedestrian taking the hijab off is, yeah. Never really thought about it. It is quite literally just taking your hat or well, head-scarf, off. It’s like when my great-grandma came in from the rain and took that plastic headband off she always wore to keep her hair dry.
Ridiculous how backwards we as a species can be, and sadly often are. 😔
Is it too reductive to conclude this is just men wanting to be able to dictate what women should and shouldn’t do? Anyone claiming otherwise, even women who “would gladly wear it” feels like Stockholm syndrome to me.
Maybe I’m wrong to think this, but alas, I do.
Yeah the whole thing sucks just remember their are religious fanatics within all religions.
Fanatics and extremists exist regardless of religions. The latter just allows them to control people easier, and islam happens to be particularly good at that.
Of course, most ‘religious’ people have enough common sense to not follow them to the T. When the government is religious though, like islam encourages, you have a big problem
Fanatics and extremists exist regardless of religions. The latter just allows them to control people easier, and islam happens to be particularly good at that.
This is more accurate.
It’s not that “fanatics exist in all religions”, it’s “fanatics exist”, and religions just give them a cover that is depending on society difficult to challenge as in many places, a religion’s influence on society and rules is quite normalized, completely ignoring how ridiculous this influence is.
Islam isn’t better at it than other religions it just happens to be the major religions in the countries where those fanatics managed to seize the power. You can find similar examples with Christianism (Europe, USA), Judaism (Israel), Hinduism (India), Buddhism (Myanmar) and probably many more.
Islam doesn’t encourage any more for theocracy than other Abrahamic religions. The existence of religious fundamentalist Islamic theocracies is a lot more complex than Islam. A lot of it can be traced to colonialism, the decolonization process and Western interference in Islamic countries. This is largely why Iran is one of those. The last Shah was seen corrupt autocratic puppet of the West by many. As a counter to it, the country over-corrected and landed in fundamentalist Islamic theocracy. Radicalization of Islam leading to similar governments happened in other Islam-majority countries. Before the 60s and 70s, many Islamic countries didn’t differ a lot from Western countries when it came to social liberties. There are a lot of images of Tehran and Kabul with women in mini skirts for example.
While I am not saying that modern Islamic countries are not problem or thousand when it comes to civil liberties and democracy, Islam in my knowledge was more tool and less reason behind it.
The problem is when a government is captured by religion.
There is nothing quite so bad as religious types getting power based purelly on being religious types.
I suspect that, because it’s the most fanatical power-hungry types (Moralism is really just a way of justifying the forcing of others to your will) who both have the most motivation to seek positions were they can have free rain to really go on powertrips on other people, and display more overtly the very religiosity that is the whole reason for a government whose power is based on religion.
Certainly those who feel no need to impose their will on others and who can even *gasp* see some actions as overzealous, don’t have anywhere the same drive, zealotry and backstabbing instincts to climb up the ladder in such power structures.
While I agree strongly with the latter statement I have a lot of reservations with the former. I am incredibly happy for her. But this decision as has been the case most of the time in the past decade with the exception of Ukrainian refugees is a decision on an individual level instead of an institutional one. There are a lot of people who are either asylum seekers, people with asylum or quota refugees with similar situations and danger levels. Making individual decisions leaves them behind and only aids one person. Basically, it is good PR with limited results increasing already existent inequality among refugees in Spain.
Spain is a fairly difficult country to get into if you want the law to treat you in equal terms as any other citizen, if you belong to the wrong nationality. Latin Americans are often received with open arms, while Africans usually end up working below minimum salary without legal protections due to the lack of means to regularize their situation and the fear of getting deported.
When this story appeared last year, my first thought was:“Well, I hope she plans on never going back to Iran”
Glad to see she is safe.
