“They made me wear a scarf against my will," says Dorsa, "and I thought that that was pretty stupid, because, 'Well, I’m 6. Why would I need to wear a scarf?’ So I ruined the live TV and I ran out. Then they told me that whenever I changed my mind, I can go back. I never did, so I never went back for the TV.

...

“Well, actually, in Iran, there is no rule that when the girl is 8 or 10 years old, she has to wear a scarf," Dorsa says. "So between 10 until 12, the girls start to want to wear one, because everybody else is wearing one. But I tried to delay as much as possible. So I wasn't wearing the scarf up until I was 12. And when I entered under 13, I decided, 'OK, it’s time that I start wearing the scarf.'"

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Dorsa and her brother, Borna, played an international tournament in late January and early February in Gibraltar. A computer decides the matchups, and in the opening round, 14-year-old Borna was paired with grandmaster Alexander Huzman. Borna played the game, but there was one problem. Huzman represents Israel, a fact that the pairings sheet didn’t show. Tournament organizers usually manually manipulate the pairings to avoid these matchups, but for this one, the organizers apparently forgot.

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A few weeks after the tournament ended, Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh announced that Borna was banned from both playing for Iran and entering tournaments inside Iran. In the same press conference, he also banned Dorsa for not wearing a headscarf.