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.

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.

    • @Steeve@lemmy.caEnglish
      32•11 months ago

      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.

    • Oliver LoweEnglish
      20•11 months ago

      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.

    • Carighan MaconarEnglish
      18•11 months ago

      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.

        • @steltek@lemm.eeEnglish
          2•11 months ago

          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.

      • ZengenEnglish
        5•11 months ago

        I would say that what you say makes sense but it doesn’t really work super well in practice. I’ll give the best example. North Korea. We have choked them on food, energy, medicine etc. For going on 70 years now. They are still a cancerous blight on the world. With nukes. Sure I guess the argument could be made that they stay inside north Korea and keep to themselves though.

    • @SuddenDownpour@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3•11 months ago

      If the Irani government already intends to arrest her, her only avenue to “help Iran” was taking up arms. I think everyone here has enough brain cells to understand why you can’t shame any random person for just not making that choice.

    • Sentrovasi
      -5•11 months ago

      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.

      • Larvitar
        19•11 months ago

        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.

        • Sentrovasi
          1•11 months ago

          She isn’t responsible, and I hope that was clear in my original statement. What I’m saying is agreeing with the sentiment in the original post that rather than lending support to the problems faced back home, it might conversely make things worse.

          It’s not her prerogative at all, just a sad observation.

      • QuokkaEnglish
        5•11 months ago

        If she stayed, would that change anything?

      • @glimse@lemmy.world
        2•11 months ago

        It’s not necessarily about what she specifically could do but it’s emblematic of the greater issue. Not the first intelligent person to never return to Iran due to the leadership and she won’t be the last