Minister of Sports and Youth: Conditions for Women's Presence in Stadiums Will Be Provided

Masoud Soltani Far, the Minister of Sports and Youth, announced that conditions will be created for women's presence in stadiums. According to ISNA news agency, Soltani Far stated that the government is seeking a solution to achieve this matter, adding, 'This event will not be unexpected.' He said, 'God willing, we will gradually try to witness the presence of families in stadiums.' The Minister of Sports and Youth also added, 'In the past, families went to stadiums, and we had no problems in this regard. Certainly, the boundaries that must be observed by the people will be respected. I am sure our fans and spectators in all sports will observe these boundaries.' Women's presence in stadiums and sports fields in Iran to watch competitions has been restricted since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Many women consider this issue as 'gender discrimination.' This has led international sports organizations to repeatedly pressure Iran to eliminate this discrimination. In June 2015, when the Iranian volleyball team was set to host the U.S. volleyball team as part of the World Volleyball League, the International Volleyball Federation threatened that if women were prevented from attending the venue, Iran would be deprived of the right to host these competitions. Civil activists and human rights advocates in Iran have always tried to act against this discrimination. For instance, Shirin Ebadi, head of the Center for Human Rights Defenders and an Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate, in a letter she wrote in 2015 to the head of the UN Women’s Agency, spoke of the intensified crackdown on women’s rights activists, including arrests and heavy judicial sentences, and the prevention of women from entering stadiums. Ms. Ebadi emphasized in this letter that 'the government [of Iran] has a duty to provide women with the opportunity to watch sports competitions.' In 2006, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then President of Iran, sent a letter to the head of the Physical Education Organization requesting the provision of facilities for women's presence in stadiums. This letter was met with varying responses among officials, members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, and foreign news agencies, and Ahmadinejad could not implement it due to the explicit opposition of a group of clerics in Qom and eventually abandoned his decision. Meanwhile, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, the conservative Friday prayer leader of Tehran, has stated that the most important reason for clerical opposition to women's presence in stadiums is the importance of observing hijab and chastity, asserting that there can be no guarantee for adherence to these in the presence of women in stadiums to watch sports competitions.