Afghan Olympic sprinter sends powerful message to Taliban on women’s rights

By Sahar Akbarzai, CNN

(CNN) — For Kimia Yousofi, it was never about winning the gold.

The Afghan sprinter may have finished last in her OIympic 100-meter heat, but her presence on the track in Paris sent a powerful message on women’s rights to the ruling Taliban.

“Education. Sport. Our Rights,” said a handwritten note on the back of Yousofi’s race bib that she proudly displayed after finishing in 13.42 seconds at the Stade de France on Friday.

“I am fighting for a land where the terrorists came. If they get into your house, you say, ‘OK, get out, this is my house.’ What should I feel? They took my land,” she said after the race. “No one in Afghanistan recognizes them as the government. No one. They cannot talk. I can talk.”

Afghanistan under Taliban rule is the most repressive country in the world for women’s rights, according to the United Nations. Since it returned to power in 2021, the hardline Islamist group has closed secondary schools for girls, banned women from attending university and working at NGOs, restricted their travel without a male chaperone, and banned them from public spaces such as parks and gyms.

The Taliban’s so-called morality police have also disproportionately targeted women and girls, creating a “climate of fear and intimidation,” according to a UN report published last month.

Yousofi, 28, is Afghanistan’s sole female track representative in Paris, part of the country’s six-member Olympic team – made up of three men and three women in a symbolic sign of gender equality.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has barred Taliban officials from attending the Paris Games. The head of Afghanistan’s national Olympic committee recognized by the IOC and its secretary general are in exile, according to the IOC.

Born to refugee parents in Iran during the Taliban’s previous rule, Yousofi relocated to Afghanistan to represent the country in the 2016 Rio Olympics and was the country’s flag bearer at the Tokyo Games in 2021.

She relocated to Australia in 2022 to train for the Paris Olympics, working with Sydney-based coach John Quinn.

“I think Kimia is an inspiration to women, humanity around the world. Having the courage to have a voice and speak up. And make a stand. When the consequences of that can be catastrophic,” Quinn told CNN.

“For some people it’s (about) winning gold, silver, bronze, for others it’s about making a stand.”

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