Iran left without women chess GrandMasters after Sara Khadem’s defection

She finished tied 31st in the rapid competition and 19th in blitz, in which players must make their moves even faster.

The hijab, which is mandatory under Iran’s strict Islamic dress code, has become the focus of protests against the Iranian government.

Khadem not wearing the hijab was seen as being in solidarity with demonstrations that brought unrest in Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old died in custody in September after being arrested by Iran’s morality police for allegedly not wearing her hijab correctly.

Khadem is not the first Iranian women’s Grandmaster to defect to another country. In fact, all the other four active Iranian women’s Grandmasters have also defected to other countries. Dorsa Derakhshani defected in 2017. Atousa Pourkashiyan, like Derakhshani, plays for the USA. Ghazal Hakimifard has moved to Switzerland while Mitra Hejazipour plays for France.

Khadem has been outspoken in the past. In 2019, when Grandmaster Alireza Firouzja protested and defected to France, upset at being forced to lose by default against Israeli rivals — the Iran government had a policy of its players not playing with Israeli opponents — Khadem had supported Firouzja and warned that if the decision wasn’t overturned, more players would follow Firouzja and find asylum somewhere else.

Married to popular Iranian film director Ardeshir Ahmadi, who was once imprisoned in Iran for three months, apparently because of documentaries he had made, Khadem, anticipating trouble if she goes back to Iran, headed to a Spanish city with her husband and her 11-month-old baby.

According to El Pais website, Khadem and her family own an apartment in Spain, but it is yet unknown if she has already obtained a Spanish residence permit, or if she has requested, or intends to request political asylum.

The first Iranian women’s Grandmaster to defect was Berajshani who did not return to her country after playing without a hijab at the Gibraltar Open six years ago. Ironically, Khadem also competed at that event, and wore her hijab in the tournament room but removed it as soon as there were no photographers around.

With Khadem, Pourkashiyan had also removed her hijab at the 2017 tournament in Gibraltar as well the most recent one in Almaty. She too was pictured without her hijab but unlike Khadem, she has already moved to the US. Pourkashiyan is currently ranked 5th in the world, after having been 2nd in the Iranian female ranking for many years and winning the women’s national chess competition six times.

In 2020, Hakimi had forsaken her Iranian nationality to compete under the Swiss flag in international chess tournaments. While Hakimi, who became a women’s Grandmaster in 2016, didn’t exactly reveal why she was switching alliances, it was rumoured that her country’s strict code had a lot to do with it. She was studying in Zurich at the time while playing for the Iran national team.

In January 2020, Mitra Hejazipour was expelled by the Iranian Chess Federation for boldly removing her scarf during the World Rapid & Blitz Chess Championship in Moscow. The 29-year-old, who had been playing for the Iranian team at the Women’s Chess Olympiads since 2008, said that the hijab is a “limitation, not protection, as official regime propaganda claims”. She moved to France soon after her ban. Like Hehazipour, Shohreh Bayat, a top chess referee, was seen not wearing a hijab in Shanghai while officiating at the women’s world championship in 2020. She said that she feared returning to Iran and now lives in Britain.

Perhaps nobody has taken the Iranian protests to the global stage more than its sportspersons.

On the biggest of stages, at the FIFA World Cup, the Iranian team refused to sing the national anthem ahead of their first game.

Their defender Ehsan Hajsafi spoke in apparent support of anti-government protesters at home.

“They should know that we are with them. And we support them. And we sympathise with them regarding the conditions,” the AEK Athens player said. “We have to accept the conditions in our country are not right and our people are not happy. We are here but it does not mean we should not be their voice or we should not respect them.”

Iranian women have played a prominent role in the protests, removing their hijabs or in some cases, even burning them.

In October last year, Iranian climber Elnaz Rekabi competed in South Korea without a headscarf, later saying she had done so unintentionally. In November, an Iranian archer said she did not notice her hijab falling during an awards ceremony in Tehran.

While all of Iran’s women Grandmasters have defected to other countries, nothing has hurt the federation more than World No. 4 Firouzja leaving the country when he was just 16.

In 2019, Firouzja, upset at being forced to lose by default against Israeli rivals, defected to France. A chess prodigy, Firouzja won the Iranian Chess Championship at age 12 and earned the Grandmaster title at 14. At 16, Firouzja became the second-youngest 2700-rated player. He is the youngest ever 2800-rated player, beating the previous record set by Magnus Carlsen by more than five months.