Shohreh Bayat, who was forced to leave Iran in early 2020 after a scandal over wearing the hijab, has revealed she was personally asked by FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich to stop wearing a T-shirt with the message “Women Life Freedom” at the Fischer Random World Championship in Iceland. She did, but only to wear the Ukrainian colours instead, and since appears to have fallen out of favour with FIDE.

Shohreh Bayat is a FIDE Women's Master and early on in her chess career decided to become an arbiter as well. Perhaps the pinnacle of her new career came when she worked as the Chief Arbiter at the Ju Wenjun vs. Aleksandra Goryachkina Women’s World Championship match in early 2020, but it was a success overshadowed by non-chess drama.

The tiebreaks of the Ju Wenjun-Goryachkina World Championship match | photo: Michael Friedman, FIDE

In one photo from the first half of the match in China, Shohreh appeared not to be wearing the hijab head-scarf compulsory for Iranian women. She later told chess24:

Shohreh Bayat decided to remove her hijab completely for the rest of the event and not return to her family in Iran, a decision that earned her the US Women of Courage award.

Other Iranians have recently made the same leap, with Sara Khadem removing her hijab while playing in the World Rapid and Blitz in Almaty, Kazakhstan and reportedly now moving to Spain.

Iranian-born Atousa Pourkashiyan was playing for the USA, while Sarasadat Khademalsharieh represented Iran | photo: Lennart Ootes

Shohreh switched to the English Chess Federation and continued to work as one of the world’s top arbiters. Then in October last year she was Deputy Chief Arbiter for the World Fischer Random Chess Championship in Reykjavik, Iceland, just as women’s rights in Iran had suddenly become centre stage again. Two young women had died in mid-September, with women across the country protesting by taking huge risks to remove their hijabs.

It was natural that Shohreh would show her support, as she did by wearing a T-shirt with the message “Women Life Freedom”. She performed her duties without issue and, in what FIDE had billed as the Year of Women in Chess, this could have been positive all round — an illustration that women can take top roles in chess and support their fellow women. Her appearance, if anything, brought extra positive publicity to the event, and it broke no rules — there was no dress code for arbiters.

Shohreh had to explain to Wesley So that you can't castle while in check even in Fischer Random, while at the time Ian Nepomniachtchi's outfit raised more dress code questions than Shohreh's | photo: Lennart Ootes

Alas, that’s not how FIDE approached the issue. FIDE’s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer David Llada says he was first to raise the topic with Shohreh and describes “doing activism” in her role as “inappropriate and unprofessional”.

Shohreh denied that other arbiters objected to her clothes.

The tournament director likely refers to Joran Aulin-Jansson, who ran on Arkady Dvorkovich’s ticket and now serves as a FIDE Vice President.

That brings us to the real issue — Dvorkovich personally contacting Bayat to ask her not to wear the T-shirt.

Arkady is said to have accused Shohreh of mixing sports and politics, but there are two obvious responses. One is that in this case it was less “politics” than an appeal for basic human rights, something FIDE’s own Charter requires the organisation to promote.

The other was that it was clear hypocrisy, since Arkady Dvorkovich remaining FIDE President is the single most political statement made by the organisation.

Dvorkovich was a high-ranking Kremlin official for the decade from 2008-18, serving as adviser to Dmitry Medvedev and then as Deputy Prime Minister, including in 2014, when Russia invaded Ukraine for the first time. Arkady has never expressed regrets about that decision, instead repeating Russian propaganda when asked about the topic by the BBC and other news organisations.

For chess, Dvorkovich, who organised the 2018 World Cup in Russia, ensured there was a steady flow of Russian money into the game. That meant a lack of genuine commercial sponsorship was no issue, but also came at the cost of FIDE’s events being used for what is often called “sportswashing”.

Dvorkovich sits on the Honorary Board of the Russian Chess Federation alongside the likes of Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov, Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu, and numerous sanctioned oligarchs. Exactly a week before February 24th, 2022, when some kind of attack looked inevitable, Arkady Dvorkovich handed out the prizes at a tournament for the Russian armed forces.

Arkady Dvorkovich posed with the winners | photo: Russian Chess Federation

The full-scale invasion that followed meant the government Arkady Dvorkovich had served for a decade had led his country and Ukraine to utter catastrophe.

Calls for Arkady’s resignation were immediate, but he stayed in place, giving an interview to Mother Jones where he commented, “my thoughts are with Ukrainian civilians”. Any benefit from that interview, however, was immediately wiped out by his statement a day later as Head of the Skolkovo Foundation. He talked about a peace “with no place for Nazism”, a clear nod to Russian propaganda against Ukraine.   

Dvorkovich, who stepped down as head of Skolkovo before it was placed on the US sanctions list for supporting the Russian arms industry, has never renounced that statement, and also resisted all calls to resign. Some of his supporters claimed there was no need for resignation as his term was coming to an end, but Arkady then announced he would again put himself forward as a candidate for President. He faced no well-funded opposition and won comfortably.

The reaction from within Russia immediately stressed the PR win. For instance, Russian Chess Federation President Andrey Filatov commented:

Putin’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov called it “clearly very good news and a very significant victory,” and Russian sources boasted that with Arkady in charge FIDE had done the least possible to restrict Russian players. Chess is mainly an individual sport, but FIDE didn’t follow the IOC recommendation to ban Russian players, instead only banning the Russian teams. Individual players could even keep their affiliation to the Russian Chess Federation, with the only cosmetic change the use of a FIDE flag rather than a Russian flag at the board.

FIDE postponed the World Team Championship rather than playing it early in the year in the absence of the Russian team, and when hopes of a quick end to the war vanished FIDE completely altered the format of the Women’s Candidates Tournament, the 2nd most important event in the Women’s game, to reduce the chances of a clash between the 3 Russian and 2 Ukrainian players to a minimum.

Dvorkovich with Ukrainians Mariya and Anna Muzychuk, as well as Lei Tingjie and Humpy Koneru, at the Opening of the Women's Candidates in Monaco | photo: Michał Walusza, FIDE

It remained puzzling that if such drastic measures were required it was still considered reasonable for Dvorkovich himself to attend the Opening Ceremony of the “Ukrainian” half of the event.

So for Dvorkovich to lecture Shohreh Bayat about not mixing chess and politics would have been extreme, even if it not for the specific Iranian angle. At the time of the tournament, Iran had become one of Russia’s few military allies, providing drones to attack Ukrainian cities. Arkady intervening to suppress criticism of the Iranian regime could hardly provide worse optics for the game of chess.

Shohreh told chess24:

Her case has been taken up by many prominent activists, including Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad.

Shohreh’s response in Reykjavik was fitting. She didn’t wear the “Women Life Freedom” T-shirt again, but instead came proudly dressed in Ukrainian colours.

Shohreh Bayat in blue and yellow as Hikaru Nakamura went on to win his 1st official world title | photo: Lennart Ootes

It’s something we’ve seen, for instance, from Anastasia Karlovich while commentating on the US Championship in St. Louis…

Anastasia Karlovich at the US Championships in St. Louis | photo: Lennart Ootes

...and it seems the tradition is continuing.

It’s to be hoped that the recent exposure of FIDE’s approach will encourage the organisation to restore one of their most talented arbiters to a full role in the game.