17 April 2019

Sadaf Khadem: Iranian female boxer halts return over arrest fears

An Iranian who became the first woman from her country to contest an official boxing match says she has cancelled her return home from France after hearing a warrant had been issued for her arrest.

Sadaf Khadem beat the French boxer Anne Chauvin in an amateur bout on Saturday.

She had planned to fly to Tehran with her French-Iranian trainer this week.

Khadem was quoted by a sports newspaper as saying she believed she was accused of violating Iran's compulsory dress code by boxing in a vest and shorts.

Iranian officials have not commented, but the head of Iran's boxing federation denied that Khadem would be arrested if she came home.

"Ms Khadem is not a member of [Iran's] organised athletes for boxing, and from the boxing federation's perspective all her activities are personal," Hossein Soori was quoted as saying by an Iranian news agency. [BBC] Read more