Saudi Arabia’s First Female Olympic Athletes Called ‘Prostitutes’

Saudi Arabia will be sending two female athletes to the 2012 London Olympics, which officially began Friday.

Wojdan Shaherkani (Judo) and Sarah Attar (athletics) will be the first two women to ever represent the kingdom, where conservative religious clerics forbid the participation of women in competitive sports.

On Twitter, their anticipated involvement in the games set off a flurry of reactions, including a hash tag which described them as the “Prostitutes of the Olympics.”

Saudi Arabia’s earlier announcement that women would be excluded from London 2012 was faced with a call for banning the kingdom from the Olympics.

The participation of women under the Saudi flag comes under conditions: that they would not compete in mixed games and that they would dress up conservatively, among others.

On Twitter, Saudi blogger Ahmed Al Omran shares the line up of athletes representing his country at the Olympics and quips: @Ahmed: List of Saudi athletes who will compete in London Olympics. Interestingly, Sarah Attar appears without a headscarf.

On his own blog, Al Omran further elaborates:

To appease the clerics, Saudi most senior sports official Prince Nawaf bin Faisal announced a set of rules for women’s participation at the Olympics. Athletes can only take part if they do so “wearing suitable clothing that complies with sharia” and “the athlete’s guardian agrees and attends with her,” he told local daily al-Jazirah. “There must also be no mixing with men during the Games,” he added.

On Twitter, a Saudi Twitter user allegedly called Sultan Al Hilali spread the hash tag #عاهرات_الاولمبياد which translates to The Prostitutes of the Olympics, reportedly in reference to the Saudi athletes taking part in the games. The hash tag got many angry responses, as well as a few in its support.

Aljohara responds: @SkittlesFairy: You remind me of Europe in the Dark Ages; you insult this and slur that person in the name of religion. This religion has nothing to do with you.

Rasha Al Dowasi adds: @Rsha_D: Muslim athletes from Muslim countries have been participating in the Olympics for years. Sport only becomes prostitution when Saudi women practices it.

Many citizens also called for the prosecution of the Twitter user who came up with the hash tag. A screen shot of the tweet which calls the women taking part in the games as prostitutes is making the rounds online. The aim is to name and shame the person behind the hash tag.

Saudi blogger Eman Al Najfan shares her thoughts on Saudi women and the Olympics here.

For years, human rights organizations hoping to use the Olympics as leverage to challenge Saudi Arabia’s restrictive gender policies have looked to the case of apartheid South Africa. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), after all, expelled South Africa in 1970 for its policy of racial discrimination — a ban that stayed in place for 21 years, until the fall of apartheid in 1991. If the IOC took action against South Africa to help end race-based apartheid there, shouldn’t it bar Saudi Arabia from the 2012 London Olympics in protest of gender-based apartheid in the kingdom? Read on here.

NOTE: Writing this article, I researched some of the books and fatwas against women sports and I refer to one of these books in the article. In that same book, I came across something interesting that wasn’t included in the article. So I thought I would share it with you here:

AlShathri (the author) argues that physical education will require that the girls change in front of each other and that this “will open the evil door of lesbianism, admiration and their hearts getting attached to each other and as our sheikh Abdulrahmin Al Barrack, bless him, has stated, “This is currently common among our students before the incorporation of physical education, so how will it be after?!””

The two articles are also cross-posted in The Guardian.

Other countries sending female athletes to compete in the Olympics for the first time are neighbouring Qatar and Brunei.

Written by Amira Al Hussaini

This post was originally published by Global Voices.