The Iranian female chess grandmaster Mitra Hejazipour who was sacked from the national team for boldly removing her headscarf (hijab) during the World Rapid & Blitz Chess Championship in Moscow, has said that hijab is "limitation" not "protection" as official regime propaganda claims.
In an Instagram post on January 28, the 27-year old grandmaster said the hijab is a clear symbol of an ideology in which women are "the second sex". "It creates many limitations for women and deprives them of their basic rights. Is this protection? I say definitely not, it is solely and merely a limitation," she wrote.
Hejazipour who says she was bullied by a relative at the age of six to wear a headscarf, even at home, now insists after years of wearing the hijab at all times and being "an example to others", she has decided "not to have a share in this horrendous lie and not to play the game of 'We love the hijab and have no problem with it' anymore". [Radio Farda] Read more
