Iran sacks sports official over athlete's hijab violation

Iran's sports minister has sacked the country's deaf sports federation chief after pictures emerged of a foreign woman athlete without a compulsory headscarf at a tournament, local media said.

Mehran Tishehgaran was removed from his position "due to events that happened in the Asian Deaf Athletics Championships," the ISNA news agency reported late Monday.

Sports Minister Kioumars Hashemi named Alireza Khosravi to replace Tishehgaran, it said.

Iranian media has in recent days published images of a woman athlete wearing shorts and a tight tank top at the Sunday-Monday tournament in Tehran.

Tishehgaran said men and women did not mix during the competition.

"Only women were present in that area and the security officials collected all the cameras and mobile phones," he said in an interview with the Fars news agency.

Tishehgaran added that images of the athlete were taken by her team from Kazakhstan.

Covering the neck and head has been compulsory for all women in Iran -- even foreigners -- since shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

In May, the head of Iran's athletics federation resigned following a sporting event that included women without the mandatory hijab in the southern city of Shiraz.

Women have been increasingly flouting the strict dress code since months-long demonstrations erupted in September last year following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, in custody.

Amini had been arrested for allegedly breaching the dress code.