(Bloomberg) — An Iranian climber who broke Iran’s Islamic laws by competing at an international tournament without her hair covered is on her way back to Tehran, the country’s embassy in Seoul said, denying earlier reports that she’d gone missing.
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Elnaz Rekabi officially represented the Islamic Republic without wearing a head scarf — something that’s been mandatory for all Iranian female athletes since 1979 — at the Asian climbing championships in the South Korean capital on Oct. 16.
She did so following a month of widespread anti-government protests in Iran that were triggered by the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested last month for allegedly flouting the nation’s strict Islamic dress codes.
Videos of Rekabi nimbly scaling an indoor wall, with her ponytail out and aloft, went viral on Twitter and other social media platforms. The footage added to a growing list of defining images from the demonstrations in which women have taken center stage, publicly removing their head scarves in protests and leading demands for an end to laws that impose strict mandates on what they can wear.
On Monday, the BBC reported that Rekabi had gone missing from her Seoul hotel and her passport had been confiscated, triggering a flood of tweets expressing concern about her safety and whereabouts.
Iran’s embassy in Seoul on Tuesday dismissed the report as “fake news and misinformation” and said Rekabi was en route to Iran with the rest of her team. Another Iranian climber posted on Instagram that Rekabi wasn’t missing and would arrive in Iran, via a layover in Doha, early Wednesday.
The International Federation of Sport Climbing, the organizers of the Seoul tournament, said in a statement that it was in touch with Rekabi and her team and that she was returning to Iran, adding that it would monitor the situation on her arrival in Tehran.
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