By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Two organisers of a marathon have been arrested for allowing women who did not put on hijab participate in the exercise, Iranian judiciary said on Saturday.
This comes after images appeared online showing the women competing in the race on Friday without the religious veil.
Two thousand women and 3,000 men took part separately in the marathon on Kish Island off the southern coast of Iran.
Dressed in red t-shirts, some of the women competitors were clearly not wearing the hijab or any other head covering, attracting diverse reactions.
Many supporters of change in Iran hailed the images as further evidence of Iranian women rejecting the restrictions placed by the authorities on what they can wear.
In reaction, Iranian officials said the development is an unacceptable challenge to the status quo.
The country’s theocratic Islamic leadership has expressed anger, not only over the flouting of the rules on the hijab by some female competitors but that the marathon held in the first place.
Few years ago, the sight of so many Iranian women in sports gear participating in such a mass public event would have been seen as a contravention, despite their separation from their male counterparts.
The prosecutor in Kish said the way that the race was being held was in itself a “violation of public decency”.
The issue of the hijab remains at the heart of the debate on where Iran might be going.
The head of the judiciary has warned of a renewed campaign against women not wearing the hijab in public.
Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said that intelligence agencies had been ordered to identify and report on what he called “organised trends promoting immorality and non-veiling”.
