Iranian arbiter Shohreh Bayat settles in the UK for now

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Macauley Peterson Macauley served as the Editor in Chief of ChessBase News from July 2017 to March 2020. He is the producer of The Full English Breakfast chess podcast, and was an Associate Producer of the 2016 feature documentary, Magnus.

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dclivejazz 2/27/2020 04:01

Hopefully the comment from AlexYermo is not from the real GM Alex Yermolinsky. That would be hard to believe.

Ajeeb007 2/26/2020 10:43

AlexYermo's comment is uncalled for. Even if Yermo's self righteous, judgmental and unfounded speculation was true a woman has a right to run away from her husband and, in the case of many Muslim women, very good reasons to.

adbennet 2/24/2020 07:06

I'm not so sure about the "anniversary" referred to by Nigel Short. There appear to be several possible anniversary dates, some of them might overlap with the World Championship, but that seems accidental: https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/04/18/iran-release-anti-compulsory-hijab-activists-0

At the risk of appearing to be a repugnant apologist, I have to wonder if she was in fact "falsely accused". From what I saw on hrw.org, there was no question of any of the women having done the acts they were charged with, nor their motivation for having done so. The only question is whether the Iranian courts should be prosecuting these acts as crimes.

daftarche wrote: "iranian girls go on vacation to other countries and take pictures with shorts and post them on instagram. This is very normal and they have not commited any crime." Don't you mean that they have not been prosecuted for any crime?

IntensityInsanity 2/24/2020 05:51

Wow, that's pretty low AlexYermo. How do you know that was her intention? Or are you just assuming? Maybe you should stick to chess, and a little less on other things?

defrigge 2/24/2020 05:07

Yeah Yermo, is there anything which could entitle you to some misogynic crap comment badouthing an Iranian woman just for the sake of getting at Nigel?

The Iranian clerics regime thinks and acts like a horde of fascists, and they deserve no respect or tolerance whatsoever, inside or outside the chess world.

AlexYermo 2/24/2020 04:13

Yeah, Nigel, keep on white-knighting for a woman who did nothing wrong but run away from her husband.

BobDylanFischer 2/24/2020 03:53

Nigel Short will help her. But this has to end.

Stupido 2/24/2020 10:35

I hope she can get some support by the FIDE or UK federation.

NIGEL SHORT 2/24/2020 08:24

Without even being contacted, Shohreh Bayat was falsely accused, on Iranian TV and in other media, of deliberately making an anti-hijab protest on the anniversary of another anti-hijab protest. Last year, three women ringleaders were sentenced to a combined total of 55 years in prison for this sartorial crime. This, by itself, ought to tell you the danger of Shohreh's position.

FlannDefence 2/24/2020 07:53

Yes, daftarche, it is sad to see a woman cry. Remember that those tears were brought on by an interviewer's question about her separation from her husband and family, and her inability to say when she might ever see them again. All because she offended the old men who rule her country by not covering her head like they think she should.

The moral relativism of apologists for theocracy is repugnant. Theocracy of any kind has always been autocratic and totalitarian. The action of the Iranian Theocracy is once again a disgrace and should not be defended.

fixpont 2/24/2020 03:47

@daftarche: even if she is exaggerating a bit, this is not normal, you either free in your country (or anywhere else) or not, there is no middle ground, if you have to trust the goodwill of authorities to not get punished for not wearing a hijab then this reason is enough to flee in my eyes

first Firouzja now she and expect more defectors, sad times

adbennet 2/24/2020 03:13

In the photo from the BBC interview, I'm not seeing any hijab at all...

daftarche 2/24/2020 01:44

iranian girls go on vacation to other countries and take pictures with shorts and post them on instagram. This is very normal and they have not commited any crime. By comparison to those pictures what happened to Bayat with her semi scarf picture is nothing and it is ridiculous to assume she will go to prison for that. As someone who is Iranian and lived in iran for many years and know the law i can say this is not about her safety. Iran is a conservative muslim country but still the situation is not as exreme as depicted here. I know this seems like a harsh judgement after seeing her tears in the video but that is my objective assessment of the situation.

daftarche 2/24/2020 01:29

Also Pahlavanzade, president of Iran chess federation, said clearly in his interviews she has no problem to return to Iran because she has not commited any crime. But Shohre Bayat demands a letter that gaurantees her safety and he can not gaurantee anything because first of all this is not in his power and secondly there is no reason for that. Either you have violated a law or not. When you have not violated any law then asking for a gaurantee is meaningless.

daftarche 2/24/2020 01:10

"The punishment of not wearing hijab IN Iran..." What she says is true about inside the country. I know as a fact that not wearing hijab outside the country does not have any legal punishment and at worst she would lose her job because she can't represent a country when she does not obey its rules. Also she seems to have a lot of fun making fun of hijab: https://t.co/Eq4fzutPR3 this seems to be a political move from her to get citizenship of a western country like UK on the grounds that she is a fugitive. The future of Iran seems grim because of the sanctions and economic situation and it is natural that many iranians are looking for ways to emigrate to other countries.