Kish Marathon Mocks Iran’s Morality Police: 2,000 Women Run Free in “Hijab-Optional” Race”On Friday, December 5, 2025, more than 5,000 runners — including roughly 2,000 women who openly ditched the compulsory hijab — turned the upscale resort island of Kish into the biggest act of sporting civil disobedience Iran has seen in years.
The sixth Kish International Marathon, the only Iranian race officially registered with World Athletics (AIMS) kicked off at dawn despite the national Athletics Federation branding it “illegal,” screaming about “un-Islamic dress code,” and promising divine and legal punishment.Spoiler: it still happened.
And it was glorious.Thanks to a convenient legal loophole, Kish is a tax-free playground for the rich in the Persian Gulf operates under “free zone” rules. That means Tehran’s sports federations, morality patrols, and hijab enforcers have exactly zero authority here. Local organizers simply got a nod from the Kish Free Zone Organization and the island’s security council, and boom: women were suddenly allowed to run in sports bras, shorts, and whatever hair situation they felt like.Predictably, hardline media lost their minds.
Kish is a tax-free playground for the rich in the Persian Gulf operates under “free zone” rules. So, they are less obligated to follow Iran unjust rules against women.
Predictably, hardline media lost their minds., Mashregh News declared, “Women’s sports should be shut down entirely nothing but corruption comes out of it.”
Mehr Agency whined that the race “distorts the image of the Iranian woman.”
Meanwhile on social media, Iranians were busy cheering: “Scenes we couldn’t even dream of three years ago.”
“Hundreds of women running with the wind in their hair. Take that, Islamic Republic.”The Athletics Federation’s spokesman, Hashem Siyami, had warned that the organizers were “pitting the people against the government” (translation: “How dare they let women breathe freely without paying us protection money?”). Too late. The race finished without a single female runner being arrested. Only two organizers one from the Kish Free Zone, one from the private company were reportedly detained for a small price for giving thousands of women one morning of feeling normal. In the end, the women of Kish didn’t just cross the finish line. They ran straight through forty-six years of enforced modesty laws and kept going.Take that, ayatollahs. The island stayed free for a day.
