Her big sporting dream was within reach and suddenly burst: Parisa Jahanfekrian wanted to be the first weightlifter from Iran to take part in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021. However, the Iranian Weightlifting Association IRIWF and the National Olympic Committee suspended the now 27-year-old from taking part in the games, thereby robbing her of her “childhood dream”. “Ever since I’ve been a weightlifter, I’ve always fought to make this childhood dream come true,” Jahanfekrian told DW in Berlin, where the Iranian has since fled, but her dream was “simply destroyed.”
The systematic oppression as an athlete in her home country has brought the weightlifter, like many other athletes from Iran, to this far-reaching decision. Even after fleeing to Germany, Jahanfekrian continues to look into an uncertain future, but at least hope is back. “I came to Germany to show how much an Iranian woman – living in freedom – can develop personally,” she emphasizes.
After qualifying for the Olympic Games, she was given “hardly any training opportunities” in Iran. “I kept pointing out these grievances to the officials, but they ignored even the simplest of requests I made,” Jahanfekrian recalls of this difficult time and drew the conclusion “that leaving the country is unfortunately the best option for me.”
$90 in three years
A major reason for this decision was the financial discrimination against female athletes in Iran. “When I qualified for the Olympic Games, I should have received a bonus from three organizations – the federation, the National Olympic Committee and the Ministry of Sport and Youth,” the 27-year-old told the online magazine “inside” after her escape the games”. But only the ministry paid, the others refused, “although they said they would pay.”
She received the equivalent of about 90 US dollars in three years, while male athletes received many times that monthly. The association did not meet its financial obligations, Jahanfekrian reported after their escape and did not allow external sources of income such as sponsors. A lack of financial support, a lack of respect and discrimination against women ultimately persuaded the 27-year-old to leave her country.
Escape despite constant surveillance
A decision she is not alone in making. Around 20 to 30 Iranian athletes are said to have taken the opportunity to flee from competitions abroad and are currently in various countries where they have applied for asylum. These include well-known judoka Saeid Mollaei, who represented Mongolia at the Tokyo Olympics, and the only Olympic medalist (bronze in Rio 2016) from Iran, taekwondo fighter Kimia Alizadeh, who after her escape in 2020 identified herself as “one of the millions oppressed women in Iran” and now lives in Aschaffenburg.
In 2016 Kimia Alizadeh won bronze in Rio, in 2020 she fled with her husband to Germany via the Netherlands
This includes weightlifter Yekta Jamali, who fled at the same time as Jahanfekrian. Her path also led to Germany, after she was the first Iranian to win a medal at the World Youth Championships (silver in 2021 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia). The 17-year-old disappeared from her hotel in the city of Heraklion on May 10 this year after the World Youth Championships in Crete, where she again won a silver medal. The Iranian delegation confirmed reports and contacted local police and Jamali’s family, but without revealing her whereabouts. “I don’t know what happened,” said IRIWF Vice President Zahra Pouramin.
IRIWF President Ali Moradi, who was part of the delegation in Greece, is said to have personally searched for Jamali after her disappearance. After her escape, Jamali reported to the London-based Iranian broadcaster Iran International that she was under constant surveillance. Your supervisors “didn’t think it possible that I would break away from the national team headquarters”. Early in the morning, however, she managed to escape from the hotel unnoticed: “I had to wait for a good opportunity to flee. When it presented itself, I went to the airport in Athens,” Jamali reported.
$30,000 bail
Her case made waves in Iran, and even state television reported on the 17-year-old’s escape. The high level of personal risk that female athletes like Jamali are willing to take to emerge from oppression and discrimination is an indicator of how dire the situation is for women in sport in Iran. In addition to the risk of being caught and severely punished when trying to escape, there is the tragic circumstance of having to leave your family behind – a traumatic circumstance, especially for such a young woman who “loves her home Iran and her family very much”. “The absence of my family will hurt me a lot, but I will do everything I can to make my family proud of my achievements,” says Jamali.
17-year-old Yekta Jamali fled to Germany after the Youth World Cup in Greece in May
And the families are already involved when it comes to leaving the country for competitions abroad, because they have to support their children financially. In order to get the exit permit, deposits are required by the Iranian state. The well-known handball player Shaghayegh Bapiri left the team during the women’s handball world championship in Spain in December 2021 and applied for asylum. She then reported that each player on the Iranian team had to post a bail of one billion toman (the equivalent of around $30,000) before traveling to the World Cup. Real estate and other valuables are said to have been deposited in Iran as an exit deposit.
future in Germany
But even the possible difficulties for their own families do not stop many Iranian athletes from fleeing. “We women are of no importance to the regime in Iran,” Kimia Alizadeh told CNN after fleeing, declaring that she was fed up with serving the state as a propaganda tool. Jamali and Jahanfekrian also no longer want to serve as “model women” who are in fact suffering adversity and discrimination.
She always had to bear travel expenses herself, and hardly any training material was made available to her. The conditions were “unworthy and discriminatory” and the officials “always deliberately put obstacles in her way,” reports Jamali at “Iran International”. But this was motivation enough for her to show: “Now more than ever!”
“In Germany, as a refugee, I will certainly have to cope with difficult times,” Jamali suspects, “but that is much less problematic than the discrimination I had to endure in Iran.” Her goal now is to continue to develop in Germany as a sport so that “the resentful officials in Iran realize who they have lost from their ranks.”
Fulfillment of the dream in Paris?
Like many others, Parisa Jahanfekrian paid a high price when she fled to Germany, but she is looking ahead: She is “overjoyed to live in a free country,” the 27-year-old told DW and now lives “without stress and Care for”. For her, her migration to Germany is “a kind of start for the condemnation of the reprisals to which women in the Islamic Republic of Iran are subjected by those in power”. Jahanfekrian wants to be “the voice of progressive Iranian women who are denied opportunities for personal development”.
The weight lifter also has big plans in her new home and is now training at TSC Berlin. “I will do everything I can to take part in the 2024 Olympic Games,” Jahanfekrian told DW. “It would make a big dream of mine come true.” For this she wants to get a permanent residence permit in Germany and maybe even citizenship in order to be able to compete for Germany in Paris in 2024. “It would be a great honor for me to wear the federal eagle on my chest,” said the 27-year-old, who lost a dream and won a new one.