FIFA barrs Iranian Women Soccer Team from Competing in the First Youth Olymic games in Singapore

Categories:

Human rights

program:

program date:

Fri, 04/09/2010

The first-ever summer Youth Olympic Games will be held in Singapore from Oct. 12-25. Some 3,600 athletes, ages 14 to 18, will compete in 26 sports. Iran's girls' squad was to be among the six teams competing in the girls' soccer competition.... No longer.

The Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) ruled that the Iranian girls may not play while wearing the hijab. In fact the version of the hijab the Iranian girls would wear is an unobtrusive head-covering that interferes neither with play nor with anyone's safety, FIFA's concerns notwithstanding. Thailand will replace the Iranian team.

Please join me when I discuss this issue with Golbarg Bashi, Linda Lowen and Pierre Trisnam;

Golbarg Bashi is an Iranian Studies Professor at Rutgers University. She was born in Iran, raised in Sweden, and educated in Britain. She holds a First Class B.A. (Honors) in Middle Eastern Studies from Manchester University, a M.Sc. in Women's Studies from Bristol University and has recently completed her doctoral thesis on a feminist critique of the human rights discourse in Iran. Her research interests include the theories and practices of human rights in Iran, modern Iranian social and intellectual history, and women's rights movements in Iran and in a comparative context.

Pierre Tristam is an editorial writer and columnist at the Daytona Beach, Fla., News-Journal, and editor of Candide’s Notebooks and a contributor on Middle East issues at about.com

A former radio/TV broadcast journalist, Linda Lowen has won national awards for her coverage of women's issues over the past decade. She's been featured in the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and on NPR's Talk of the Nation, and she is a commentator for 51% The Women's Perspective, a nationally-syndicated show heard on public broadcasting, ABC Radio Network, and Armed Forces Radio stations.

During her career as a broadcast journalist, she created, produced, and hosted women's issues radio and television programs for NPR and PBS station affiliates including the award-winning talk show Women's Voices. Linda is also a member of the Women's Media Center Progressive Women's Voices program and the National Cancer Survivor's Day Speaker's Bureau.