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…
I was talking about how it works in Iran
Iran has more freedom than you think. Yes, the law about how to dress is very restricted there. But as far as I know for marriage law, Iran (Shia islam) surprisingly very flexible on that compared to other Islam sects. There’s no problem on marriage in Iran to married a non-muslim partner, even without any requirement (of course an agreement from both side men and woman is needed, even parents agreement are not needed for some Shia sects and its legal). But for sure exclusively, any muslim woman in Iran who’s not obey on how to dress properly according to Shia Islam (even she’s married with non-muslim), the punishment will severe.
Do you live in Iran?!! If not then I should say I was living there and I know the law well. So I invite you to read more about the marriage law in Iran. Sorry, but freedom doesn’t make any sense in Iran.
Someone from Iran marrying someone from Myanmar in the Netherlands sounds like a movie musical… “Two oppressed people from different parts of the world find love in beautiful Amsterdam!”
Brain drain is one of those things that isn’t felt immediately, but over the course of months and years. Slow death :/
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.
I don’t think it’s too reductive, considering religion as a whole is always about exercising control.
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 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
That’s no coincidence imo.
I see all religions as negative, but Islam is the only one I can personally attest to, being an ex muslim. It’s cult-y and tends to bring out the worst in people, more so than most religions from what I’ve seen.
Your personal experience is not a good argument.
Here’s a recent exemple of Hindu fanatics attacking Muslims: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Delhi_riots and another from Christian fanatics attacking the institutions of the USA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack
Let’s not compare atrocities committed by religions; islam’s would be never-ending if we did, as your comment also suggested.
I will add though that buddism’s continued oppression of muslims in Myanmar is sickening, in addition to your examples
Let’s not compare atrocities committed by religions
Isn’t it what you do when singling out Islam ?
4D move by Spain; even better than Bb5, aka the “Spanish opening” or Ruy Lopez.
Hooray for Spain for the second time today. The other “hooray” was for standing against far-right movements.
Well, good. Hope things are smooth sailing from here!
she cute
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.
And another person who couldv’e helped Iran move past its issues leaves.
Sadly the impression I get, from when I’ve spoken with Iranians, is that the establishment don’t see those things as issues to move past at all.
First of all, if she went home she would’ve just been arrested, how does that help anyone? And second, why’s it on her to move Iran past it’s issues? Good on her for her brave protest and good on her for not going back and choosing to do more with her life than end up a martyr in an Iranian prison.
Yeah, while I am happy for her and wish nothing but the best for her, is this really going to change anything back home? How many other women have the means and training to do what she did? I guess the one thing this does is highlight to the rest of the world how terrible things are in Iran, but I’m under no illusion that this is going to improve the lot of oppressed women in Iran. They might be even more restricted from attending overseas competitions.
I don’t know why she would be responsible for changing anything in Iran?
She made a statement to highlight the atrocities in a terrible country and it put her in the crosshairs. This is the same thing as putting on your oxygen mask before you help others while on a plane.
I would say it’s the other way around.
The way to “help” Iran is for more people to leave. Significantly more, basically anybody with two brain cells to rub together. Leave only the most assinine idiots behind and then they can run their own country into the ground hardcore but they no longer affect anyone with it as everyone else has left.
Basically, Iran has to cease to exist in its current form. By burning itself out. This is incidentally the same way we could move past idiotic religious believes in the first place.
When does that ever work? Can you name some examples?
The aptly named Arab Spring got pretty far, as those things go. Not perfect by any stretch, of course.
I’m struggling to think of alternatives that didn’t involve foreign intention. Peaceful revolution is hard.
