Qatar basketball team leaves Asian Games over hijab row

Qatar pulled out of the women's basketball competition at the Asian Games yesterday after refusing to abide by international regulations preventing them from wearing hijabs.

The Qatari players had been asked to remove their head coverings before their opening group game against Mongolia on Wednesday, but chose to forfeit the match instead.

According to International Basketball Federation (Fiba) rules, article 4.2.2 dictates players cannot wear "headgear, hair accessories and jewellery". With no sign of the rule being relaxed ahead of their scheduled match against Nepal yesterday, Qatar decided to withdraw from their remaining games at the 17th Asiad, which is being run under the slogan: "Diversity Shines Here".

“We have decided not to take part in the remainder of the Asian Games women’s basketball competition,” an assistant with Qatar’s National Olympic Committee said.

Nepal’s players took the court for 15 minutes at the Samsan World Gymnasium, passing and shooting among themselves, before the forfeit was announced. Both Qatar games were recorded as 20-0 defeats on the games’ official website.

Discrimination

The wearing of hijabs has become a hot topic in sport in recent years with Muslim athletes saying they are being discriminated against. Judoka Wojdan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shaherkani hit the headlines at the 2012 London Olympics when Saudi Arabia demanded she be allowed to compete wearing a hijab.

While international judo federation rules at the time barred her from doing so, Shaherkani was eventually allowed to compete wearing a modified veil.

Restriction

Human Rights Watch said it should have been up to Fiba to prove why Qatari players should not wear headscarves. “We oppose any general ban on wearing of headscarves and the onus should be on the regulator to prove why a ban is necessary on the basis of health and safety,” it said.

“In the case of basketball, it’s difficult to see how a ban on the headscarf is anything other than an unnecessary restriction on the players’ rights to religious freedom and personal autonomy.”

Competition at the Asian Games is conducted under the regulations of the sports’ international governing bodies, meaning athletes in other sports are free to wear hijabs.

All four bronze medal-winning rowers of Iran’s lightweight women’s quadruple sculls team wore hijabs on Wednesday, while Kuwait’s Najlaa I M Aljerewi and Iran’s Aghaei Hajiagha Soraya wore them in the triathlon and badminton events on Thursday.

Fiba said earlier this month it had held discussions on the issue and was introducing a two-year “testing phase” on what players can wear, though that only applies at the national level, not international competitions such as the Asian Games. – (Reuters)