Iran defeated Bahrain Wednesday evening to qualify for the 2006 World Cup in advance with one game at hand, whereas another outreaching attraction of the match is the nearly 50-member group of female fans on the stands, a rare scene in this Islamic country.

Iranian women, calling for gender equality in all fields, have cautiously escalated their show from single figures to a collective image in the stadium, which is viewed as a scene open only for men according to the strict Islamic laws of the country.

The lucky females on Wednesday were admitted to break into men's circle just because they were employees and associates of the Football Federation. Even so, they had encountered some troubles with the guards on the actual entrance. They protested hard and finally found their way to the match.

The women fans seemed active and excited, without any coyness amid tens of thousands of males. Some of them were distributing photos of football players and propaganda of the Football Federation.

There is no denying that their presence was a show not only of Iranian ladies but also of the country's Vice President Mohsen Mehralizadeh, who is in charge of the Football Federation and is a reformist candidate for the upcoming presidential elections on June 17.

"They (the women) are indeed a political measure of Mehralizadeh," a fan told Xinhua.

However, according to the lucky women themselves, their special profession and mission did not impair the significance of their unusual presence at all.

"Now, we can enter publics like cinemas and concerts as gentlemen do. The stadium is the only taboo for women in Iran," Halimeh Aarabi, a veteran secretary of the Football Federation, told Xinhua after the match.

"We hope the last bastion of sexual discrimination should be removed by us as soon as possible," Aarabi said as a pioneer, stressing that football belongs to both men and women and should "be shared by both sexes".

"Women's participation can only make the game more enjoyable. It is not reasonable to ban females away from the stadium," she added.

Aarabi boasted that she was the first woman to come into the Azadi Stadium after Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979.

"That was a friendly against Saudi Arabia in 1997. From that time on, my sisters began to flirt the prohibition. For example, in the friendly with Germany last autumn and in the qualifier with DPR Korea on Friday, we managed to squeeze in. But today's show is the largest," Aarabi said.

She admitted that there is still a long way for Iranian women to get equality on the matter of entrance of stadium but voiced steady confidence that females would one day stride into the once bastion of sexual discrimination.

"We have to strive, but we will get it!" Aarabi said at last.

Source: Xinhua