Iranian climbing champion Elnas Rekabi is said to be returning to her home country. According to reports on social media on Tuesday, his passport and cell phone had been confiscated earlier, and there was also talk of the 33-year-old man’s arrest. The Iranian embassy in Seoul has denied these reports. Rekabi had climbed in Seoul without the mandatory headscarf for Iranian athletes. Wrong, as she now claimed.
In an Instagram post from an account attributed to Rekabi on Tuesday, the athlete said she was on her way home with the rest of her team. “Not wearing the head scarf was unintentional. The appointment was poorly coordinated, I was called unprepared,” the climber wrote in her post. Observers suspect a forced declaration. Iranian authorities regularly put pressure on activists at home and abroad. However, the International Climbing Association announced that it would continue to monitor the situation after its return to Iran.
Elnas Rekabi is said to have posted this story on Instagram © SCREENSHOT/INSTAGRAM/ELNAS.REKABI
Rekabi’s ascent without a headscarf was seen as a sign of her solidarity with the women’s movement and the ongoing protests in Iran. The trigger was the still unresolved death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody. The young woman was arrested by the moral police last month because her headscarf had slipped a little and a few strands of hair were visible.
Critics fear that Rekabi has been arrested and bullied. Austrian Greens foreign policy spokeswoman Ewa Ernst-Dziedzic was also concerned. “The mullahs’ long arm of repression not only enslaves Iran, but apparently also reaches abroad. The world community must not accept the Iranian regime’s kidnapping methods without objection,” Ernst-Dziedzic said Tuesday of the disappearance of Rekabi.
On Tuesday night, several Iranians gathered at the capital’s airport in Tehran to celebrate her as the new heroine of the women’s protests. But the roads to the airport were closed and the police only allowed people with valid airline tickets to continue their journey. This information has not yet been confirmed by the Iranian authorities.
Since the nationwide protests broke out, several prominent athletes – including former football stars Ali Daei, Ali Karimi and Mehdi Mahdavikia – have criticized the system for its crackdown on women’s protests and pledged their solidarity with the protesters.