A young woman banned from Iran’s national chess team for playing without wearing a headscarf has switched allegiances to the US.
Iran’s semi-official ISNA said that Dorsa Derakhshani, 19, refused to wear the hijab during a competition in Gibraltar in February, and has joined the US national team.
Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has required women to wear the hijab in public places.
However, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported Monday that the president of Iran’s chess federation, Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh, said Ms Derakhshani had in fact changed her national federation to the United States, which was not unusual among chess players.
Ms Dorsa left Tehran and moved to Barcelona in 2015 after she received an invitation by a chess club that also supported her studies, according to ISNA.
She was awarded the titles Woman Grandmaster and International Master by the World Chess Federation in 2016.
At the February competition in Gibraltar, her younger brother Borna Derakhshani, also a chess player, was paired up by a computer against Israeli grandmaster Alexander Huzman. Mr Pahlevanzadeh later announced that Borna was banned from playing for Iran, and that her sister was also banned for not wearing the hijab at that competition.
Iran has a policy of not competing against Israeli athletes.
Shohreh Bayat, the general secretary of Iran’s chess federation, said: “(Dorsa) Derakhshani has not become a member of the US national chess team, she just changed her federation to the United States.”
