Nazi Paikidze, the reigning US Women’s Chess Champion announced she will not attend the Women’s World Championship in Iran because she’d be forced to wear a hijab. Nazi said, “I will NOT wear a hijab and support women’s oppression. Even if it means missing one of the most important competitions of my career,” Nazi said in an interview with My Stealthy Freedom.

Now you’d think that the women’s committee of the international chess governing body would be supportive of this. Quite the opposite, Susan Polgar (pictured), a chess champion herself and Co-Chairperson of the Commission for Women’s Chess, actually tried to silence Nazi via Twitter, it didn’t go well.

Nazi was told to keep her opinions off Twitter, “I already did. Thanks to Twitter this issue got a lot of attention as well.”

Polgar then tried to win over skeptics by praising the “beautiful choices” of fabrics to choose from (which probably got a look from Nazi like this). Nazi responded that she had no intention of traveling to a country “Which treats women like 2nd class citizens.”

Polgar is on the defense now, it appears. She posted this photo of a hummingbird her Twitter a few hours ago, “Freedom should never be taken for granted!” Based on the fact that few liked or shared the tweet, I think people saw through the obvious attempt at back-peddling.

Polgar gave interview today with Chess Daily News in which she stated, “Of course we would all want the event to be held in Hawaii or Monte Carlo, etc. But after the first bidding deadline, no country made a bid. After an extension, Iran was the only country which made a bid.” That’s the equivalent of saying. ‘Kids, I know we all want to take a field trip to the zoo but the septic treatment plant was the only one who had room for us today.’

Other players have also threatened to boycott the contest, including Carla Heredia, a former Pan American champion from Ecuador. I can’t help but wonder if you’re a member of the women’s chess commission, and Iran was your only choice, shouldn’t you respect rights and dignity of your players first? Chess second? Just a thought. Nazi, thank you for speaking up.