Iranian female athlete who was competing without hijab forced to leave the country after facing persecution.

Friday, March 14, 2025 - A female Iranian rock climber who competed without a hijab has been forced to leave the country after facing persecution. 

Elnaz Rekabi gained global attention in October 2022 when she took part in championships in South Korea without wearing the headscarf required for women in the Islamic Republic.

Many took the move as a sign of solidarity for nationwide protests in September 2022 in her homeland sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody. 

She returned home and vanished from public view, with some Persian-language media based outside Iran reporting she had been placed under house arrest and banned from competing abroad.

News of her departure from Iran was confirmed this week in an Instagram post by her brother Davood.

'I wish this was a better place for you, so that missing you like this would not weigh on our hearts.'

Iranian news agency ISNA reported that she had moved to Spain and quoted the head of Iran's National Olympic Committee Mehdi Alinejad as saying he was aware of Davood Rekabi's Instagram post.

'If they want to pursue their professional sports, they should be in Iran. The National Olympic Committee has supported Rekabi for the past two years, and she herself will acknowledge this,' he told reporters on Tuesday.

But he added: 'Everyone has the choice over where to live.'

It is not clear when and under what circumstances Elnaz Rekabi left Iran.

In another development, the International Federation for Sport Climbing announced last month that Rekabi has been appointed as the 'athlete role model' for sport climbing in the Youth Olympic Games in Dakar in 2026.

It said her role was confirmed in a meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland between the climber herself, IFSC president Marco Scolaris, and International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach.