Since the Iranian referee Shohreh Bayat has shown solidarity with the protest movement, the World Chess Federation has stopped using her. A conversation about the protests in her home country, Putin’s influence on chess – and what could happen if she returns to Tehran.
It started with a misunderstanding. When the Iranian referee Shohreh Bayat, 35, was in charge of the Women’s World Chess Championship in Shanghai in January 2020, pictures appeared of her that looked as if she were not wearing a hijab, the headscarf required in Iran. There was a lot of criticism for this in her homeland, controlled by the media loyal to the regime. “The Iranian Chess Federation wanted me to apologize in writing and forced my father in front of the camera, where he said everything they wanted to hear,” says Bayat. “Afterward, I really didn’t wear a headscarf as a protest.”
