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.

  • 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.