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Iranwire – The head of Iran’s deaf sports federation was dismissed from his post this week after images emerged of a foreign woman athlete without a compulsory headscarf at a tournament in Tehran.
Mehran Tishehgaran was removed from his position “due to events that happened in the Asian Deaf Athletics Championships,” the semi-official ISNA news agency said late on November 27.
Sports Minister Kioumars Hashemi named Alireza Khosravi to replace Tishehgaran.
The moves came after Iranian media published images of a woman athlete wearing shorts and a tight tank top at the November 26-27 tournament in Tehran.
Tishehgaran denied any wrongdoing in a statement carried by the Mehr news agency, saying that the event was conducted in “full compliance” with Islamic principles and the laws of the Islamic Republic.
Speaking to the Fars news agency, he said that “only women were present in that area and the security officials collected all the cameras and mobile phones.”
Images of the athlete were taken by her team from Kazakhstan, he added.
In May, the head of Iran’s athletics federation was forced to resign after a number of women without a mandatory head covering joined a marathon race organized by the authorities in the central city of Shiraz.
All women in Iran must conceal their hair with a headscarf and wear loose fitting trousers under their coats while in public.
But a growing number of women have appeared in public since monthslong demonstrations erupted in September last year following the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, in police custody.
Amini had been arrested in Tehran for allegedly wearing her headscarf improperly.
