Support for Qatar’s women’s basketball team appears to be growing since last week’s row at the Asian Games, during which some players had to choose between taking off their headscarves or forfeiting the competition.
Citing their religious obligations, the team opted to withdraw from the tournament.
Since then, many in the sports world have been petitioning the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) to amend its ban on allowing headgear, jewelry and hair accessories during tournaments.
ESPN columnist Johnette Howard is the latest to wade into the fray, arguing in a new column this week that sometimes not playing the game is the right thing to do.
She writes:
“FIBA, the world governing body of basketball, should have long ago followed the lead of international soccer, boxing, weightlifting, judo and other sports and abandoned its backward rule that the hijab supposedly creates a safety hazard for players.”
Howard added that many female Muslim athletes have enough challenges to overcome when participating in international sports tournaments:
“At the 2012 London Olympics, athletes from Muslim countries — some of whom were sending female athletes for the first time — told their stories. They said they often have little or no place to train because there aren’t facilities for women. Many come from countries where Muslim women and girls are segregated from men in many social settings and forbidden from leaving the house without a chaperone. Physical education is not offered to girls, only to boys, in schools.”
But she was optimistic that taking a stand, as the Qatar team has done, will help change the rules for the better.
“It’s not a matter of if. Just when. It’s the right thing to do,” she said. “Muslim women have enough impediments to competing. FIBA needs to stop throwing an unnecessary roadblock in their way.”
Thoughts?
How can i trust this support coming from the evil western media whose aim is obviously to keep Muslim women covered up and in the house. It is an obviously plot by the racist media in the west
it’s obviously that you love talking
MIMH writes, and believe it or not, that’s precisely the purpose of a Forum: to express an opinion. Or two. Or twenty. And irony and sarcasm are very useful tools to do it. Perhaps some of the readers don’t feel comfortable with the fact that anonymous people can easily express an opinion but that’s exactly why this section was created whether they like it or not.
Well you seem to have an issue with him expressing his opinion of MIMH, is he not entitled to express his thoughts? Or different rules for different folks?
actually that’s the imprecise purpose of a forum, I’d say you’re half write
No issue with you or Saleem or anyone else but the place is already hostile enough to emphasise if someone talks too much or loves talking. Well, if to express opinions is not its purpose I am all ears… And half right is not that bad after all…
You may have to read between the lines on this one then
No writing actually.
LOL, now they’ll all yell USA! USA!
FIBA needs to get out of conservative. If strict Islamic countries like Qatar can allow women to participate in world sports then what is preventing FIBA being modern. See the outer world…
Seems to be an oxymoron there my friend. Some of Qatar’s women want to be conservative, so fiba should support conservativism not the opposite!
Oxymoronic is the idea that being open, which many people identify with and tout as defining characteristics of being human and accepting of all (the same may say forward thinking, enlightened, ie. in terms of people having the rights to do anything they want and thus a defining and sole characteristic in relation to being in control of their own destiny) excludes the notion and acceptance of others being conservative
Huh???
now you feel how your law applied on you… if you dont like you are free to go..
What a dumb example. You compare sport regulations to a nation’s laws? LOL.
it has the same point…
Go where? They aren’t asking any country to change its laws. They are asking an INTERNATIONAL organisation to change its laws.
go home,, and stay in the cage
Wow. You seem like a delightful person
yeah..
Dont fall for the troll…
But they did leave. They didn’t ageee with it and went home.
This is the same problem as Iran imprisoning a do giving lashes to women whose hair was uncovered and were dancing to happy. Women should be free to cover or uncover as they wish. That should also goe for Saudi which forces women to cover up.