Under Iranian law, women must cover themselves from head to toe in public; those who defy this rule risk arrest. In 2011, for example, actress Marzieh Vafamehr was sentenced to one year in prison and 90 lashes for appearing without a veil in an Australian film. At the time, it was unprecedented for the Iranian authorities to share a photograph of an unveiled woman. Many Iranians praised Hassan Rouhani for the tweet. One wrote that it showed the president valued her intellect rather than her hijab.
The medal also cast a spotlight on Iran's education system and its ability to produce outstanding students—boys and girls alike—while revealing the scale of the brain drain. More than 70% of medalists in the Iranian Mathematical Olympiad go on to study and work abroad.
