FIDE, the world’s chess federation, is being boycotted by multiple female grandmasters in the 2017 Women’s World Chess Championship in Iran next February over mandatory hijab laws.
FIDE announced the next Women’s World chess tournament last month in Baku Azerbaijan, where only the Iranian federation offered to host the games and was unopposed by any of all 159 international delegates, including the US.
Female professional chess players find themselves at odds with career choices and personal liberties as they express mixed feelings about the decision.
US international master Nazi Paikidze has become the figurehead of recent protests against FIBA’s decision in 2016 to host the next 64 player knockout.
In a petition kick-started by Nazi, she explains that as a sport, Chess should be free of “”discriminatory treatment for national, political, racial, social or religious reasons or on account of sex.” Yet, by awarding the Championship to Iran, it is breaking that pledge to its members and subjecting them to discrimination on all fronts.”
The petition can be found here.
FIDE has the goal of making chess an Olympic sport, and after past rejections by the International Olympic Committee, this could further hurt their chances.
Grandmaster Nigel Short said: “FIDE simply should not put chess players who dream of being world champion in the position of having to make moral choices about playing in such an unpleasant regime, they should be free to get on with competing.”
Principle 6 of the Olympic charter reads: “Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic movement.”
“It is absolutely unacceptable to host one of the most important women’s tournaments in a venue where, to this day, women are forced to cover up with a hijab.” – Russian born Nazi said.
Iran has operated a “morality police” since 1979 that enforces imprisonment for women that do not respect the rules. Iran has hosted women’s championships in 2007 and 2011 where the headscarf rule was enforced without formal complains from players, but not without outside criticism.
Others say the tournament should still go ahead to support women.
Some defend that the tournament should still take place in Iran to promote the strengths of women and expose them to other like minded players from the rest of the world.
“This is going to be the biggest sporting event women in Iran have ever seen; we haven’t been able to host any world championship in other sporting fields for women in the past,” Hejazipour, 23, said from Tehran. “It’s not right to call for a boycott. These games are important for women in Iran; it’s an opportunity for us to show our strength.”
Fourth-ranked female world player India’s Koneru Humpy will attend: “Every player would prefer to play under normal circumstances, without wearing a hijab. Since the venue has already been decided, I think my priority to play in the Championship ranks above everything else,” she said.
“Each religion has its own customs. I believe we need to respect and follow their traditions”.
Ecuadorian born Pan American champion Carla Heredia said: “No institution, no government, nor a Women’s World Chess Championship should force women to wear or to take out a hijab.”
“This violates all what sports means. Sport should be free of discrimination by sex, religion and sexual orientation.”
“The obligation to use hijab is one issue, another one is that women can’t share room with a male if she is not married to him.”
“So the question remains what would happen if women chess players want to share the room with a male coach or if women chess players want to prepare for the game visiting the coach’s room.”
Susan Polgar, head of FIDE’s women’s committee and sister of the world’s strongest female chess player Judit Polgar said she was not involved the decision. “The Commission for Women’s Chess (WOM) has not taken any official position. We are actively talking to female players who qualified for the upcoming Women’s World Championship for their feedback.”, she said to Chess Daily News.
Deeper issues
It’s not the first time the World Chess federation has been criticised for clothing rules or controversial host locations.
Several Georgian female players have not showed up back in 2008 in Kabardino-Balkaria over safety concerns during the Russia-Georgia war.
The Women’s World Chess championship was created to encourage female participation. There are no men-only chess tournaments.
China’s Hou Yifan is not coming either over disagreement of the rules, which she argues should be following the standard in the World Chess championship anyway. She has an ELO score of 2649.
The average chess rating is 1800, grandmasters rank at 2300-2400 and the world’s best, Norway’s Magnus Carlsen has an ELO of 2882.
She disagrees that the winner of the knockout should be declared World Winner, but should challenge the current win holder instead.
She said in an interview to Chessbase News “A 64-player knockout event is mostly a lottery: you play two games, and if you lose the first for some reason you have good chances to be eliminated. It is something that can happen in any of the five rounds required to reach the final.
I was lucky in 2010 in Turkey, but in Khanty-Mansiysk I was knocked out by Monika Socko in round two. In the same round the other top seeds Humpy Koneru and Anna Muzychuk were also eliminated, all three of us by players rated 150 points lower.
The winners of previous knockout world championships have been Xu Yuhua, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Hou Yifan, Anna Ushenina, Mariya Muzichuk – strong players, but in some cases not close to the strongest in the world.”
FIDE’s president, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, is on a US sanctions list for alleged busssiness with Syrian presidnt Bashar al Assad. Georgious Makropoulos is temporarily in charge for the meanwhile.
FIDE has confirmed that the tournament will go ahead in Iran and contracts have been signed. It remains to be seen if they will consider it optional to wear the hijab in the tournament as suggested by protesters.
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