Kiana Abdipour a 12-year-old Iranian gymnast girl was summoned to the Disciplinary Committee after her photos were published showing her in gymnastic leotards.
“Photos of the presence of an Iranian gymnast girl in a competition hosted by Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia were recently published in which there is no veil or proper cover for this teenage girl. The gymnastic outfit for this athlete is just like the same outfit that non-Muslim athletes wear during the competition,” the state-run Tasnim news agency claimed on December 25.
“She has not been sent by the Federation, the trip was managed by her family and she was accompanied by her father on this trip,” Head of the Gymnastics Federation said.
“Unfortunately, we have to deal with this case and by the decision of the disciplinary committee, we will inform the Ministry of Sports and Youth about the work to be done,” Zahra Incheh added.
Farshid Abdiopour, the father of the ten-year-old Kiana Abdipour, has rejected the claims made against her daughter, saying her daughter has not attended in Malaysian gymnastics competition.
He further stated: “They want to connect me to this issue. They have hacked photos from my phone and I do not know which photos were published. My daughter did not go to Malaysia at all and I can prove it with her passport. The Armenian exercises were held separately for girls and boys in two venues and these photos were taken after the end of the training and with the presence of foreign coaches. ”
In the end and concerning her daughter being summoned to the disciplinary committee,” he said,” My personal trip is not up to anyone. There was no match there and my daughter was practicing and the hall of girls and boys was separate.”
Women’s dress is subject to strict rules in Iran, which employs thousands of morality police to ensure they are covered with veil, punishing any infractions with arrests and fines.
In a recent case 28-year-old futsal player Shiva Amini was banned from playing for various Iranian clubs and even from coaching after she posted videos of herself in social media playing football without the hijab while on vacation in Europe.
Earlier this year Dorsa Derakhshani, member of the Iranian Women’s National Chess Team and the sixth world champion in under-18 games, was also deprived of participating in national tournaments for not covering her hair in the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival. The director of Iran’s Chess Federation, Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh, said she deserves to be “seriously dealt with” for not observing the veil in Egypt.
