The Running Battle: Marathon Runners Challenge Mandatory Dress Code on Kish Island

The recent Kish Marathon, held on the free-trade zone island in the Persian Gulf, erupted into a profound national controversy that starkly illuminated the ongoing, tense ideological battle over women's rights and mandatory Islamic dress in Iran. What began as a large-scale running event, attracting thousands of athletes, quickly morphed into a public spectacle of defiance when numerous images and videos surfaced online, showing female participants competing without the legally required head covering, the hijab. This visible and collective rejection of one of the Islamic Republic's most rigid social mandates instantly attracted the attention of hardline judicial authorities, transforming a simple sporting activity into a major political and criminal case overnight, sending a clear message to organizers about the limits of social freedom, even in a relatively relaxed zone like Kish Island.