Gandhara, Gandhara Briefing: Pakistani Visas, Taliban Taxes, Afghan Bodybuilders, 17 June 2022
“Afghan Bodybuilders Told To Cover Up Radio Azadi reports on the Taliban ordering Afghan bodybuilders to cover up during training and competitions. The order by the Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is the latest attempt by the militant group to police the appearance of Afghan men and women in public. The restriction on bodybuilders has been criticized by athletes. "The Taliban order has no religious justification, but it creates many problems for us," said Mohammad, an aspiring bodybuilder. While the Taliban has effectively banned all women's sports, bodybuilding is the first male sport the hard-line Islamists have sought to
regulate.”
Deutsche Welle, Afghan women athletes: prisoners in their own homes, 25 April 2022
“These women continue to hide in their homes, "waiting, in a sense, for the Taliban to knock on the door and
arrest them," Rezayee says. "The Taliban have sent them threatening letters. They've been intimidate and they can't go outside."
Judoka Amira describes the athletes' dramatic situation this way, "We don't need a prison for women in Afghanistan. Our houses have become prisons for us." Afghanistan, says Mina (name changed), another judoka who remained in the country, "has become a fatherless country where violent children have the power to do whatever they want with women and girls." The Taliban have not yet officially banned women's sports by law.”
International Rescue Committee, A skateboarder from Kabul learns there is nothing she can't achieve, 12 April 2022
“Belqisa Nazari [Skateboarder from Kabul] […] We didn't leave because we wanted to. The situation has gotten harder, especially for women who used to go out of the house for their jobs–or simply to practice skating like us. We found out our lives were in danger and that we might be threatened if we stayed in Afghanistan […] We had a great life before the Taliban. Although there were some restrictions, we could go out to our jobs and everywhere else. People say it's an unstable country and full of terrorists but they don't know that Afghanistan has a lot of athletes, especially women athletes, most of whom brought us a lot of valuable medals. But unfortunately now
they are all in bad situations.”
Gandhara, ‘Prisoners in Our Homes’: How the Taliban Takeover Changed the Lives of Afghan Women, 8 March 2022
“This time, the Taliban has claimed that it will not ban any sports if it complies with its interpretation of Islamic law. But it has not confirmed if it will allow women to play any sports. A senior Taliban official recently said it is "unnecessary" for women to play sports. With no clear order from the Taliban, many women are too fearful to play sports. “Previously, I used to train about 200 girls in volleyball, handball, and cycling,” said Maryam, a former
athlete who is now unemployed. “Now, not even one of them is practicing.” Hundreds of athletes and sports administrators have fled their homeland since the Taliban forcibly seized power, including top male athletes as well as female soccer, volleyball, and basketball players.”
CTV News, 'We have nothing now': Female taekwondo star banned from sport by Taliban, 27 January 2022
“[...] the story of Anzorat Wali. The empty room is where she and her older sister Nilab practise taekwondo.
Anzorat has a black belt, and a fistful of medals that jingle. [...] And it all stopped the day the Taliban arrived. [...]
They practise at home because all the gyms are closed to Afghan women and girls. Taekwondo has become a
world reserved for boys only. Boys have rights. Girls don’t. [...] The two of them used to train by jogging around the neighborhood. Everybody knew about the Wali sisters. The Taliban took that away. Now, they rarely go outside,
trapped in their home by fear. [...]”
The Guardian, Female boxer who was on Afghan’s national team is losing its skills, 20 January 2022
“About two weeks after they took Kabul, the Taliban sent two gunmen to our doorstep. They told us: “Forget your dreams. The Islamic emirate is here now, you should stop boxing, and not go to the stadium.”
I had been a member of the Afghan national boxing team when the Taliban arrived. It took me three years to make the team, my family and friends had supported me a lot, and I had done a lot of training before I was finally able to do it. My sister had been part of the youth team for several months.
In August [2021], me and my sister and the other team members went to the Olympic headquarters to prepare for a match, and the guards from the previous government took our identity cards to register us. We went to pick them up some days later, and we think some of the Taliban who were there followed us home.
The next day, at around 3.30pm, some of them came to our house and asked for the girls who did boxing. We said we didn’t know what they were talking about, and had nothing to do with any sports. But they said: “We saw you at the stadium.” Then they told us to stop boxing.”
Kake, Afghan Sportswomen ‘Terrified’ and Fearing for their lives, 23 December 2021
“Afghanistan's first female Olympian, Friba Rezayee, says she is "very angry" that her country's plight is "falling off the world agenda" as she continues to help those still trying to escape.
“Rezayee was one of many to oppose the Taliban takeover of the country in August and says those still left in the country are being forgotten.
The former judoka, who competed at the 2004 Olympic Games, says she is in regular contact with over 100 female Afghan athletes -- including members of the judo and volleyball team -- and says some women are still in hiding over fears they will receive punishment from the new regime after fighting for equality over the last two decades.”
Sky News, Kim Kardashian and Leeds United help Afghan junior women’s football team arrive in UK after escaping Taliban, 18 November 2021
“Kim Kardashian and Leeds United have helped an Afghan junior women's football team arrive in the UK after
fleeing the Taliban.
The social media influencer paid for a flight that brought more than 30 teenage girls and their families - about 130 people in all - to Britain.
The players in Afghanistan's women's youth development team were among hundreds of female athletes that have left the country since the Taliban took over and started curbing women's freedoms.
"The Afghan female footballers are well-known figures in the country," said Khalida Popal, a former captain of Afghanistan's national women's team who has led evacuation efforts for female athletes.
"Their lives were in great danger because of people in the country who opposed their activism and wanted to stop their sport and educational activities."
Some of the girls were beaten, had their houses burnt down and had family members "taken" by the Taliban, she
and the players said.”
CyclingTips, Serious allegations arise over Afghan cyclist evacuations, 11 November 2021
[...] As the Taliban tightens its grip on the country, persecution faces those that had been symbolic of the “new Afghanistan”. Counted on that list: cyclists, especially female ones, that were public faces of Afghanistan’s progress, and are now in hiding, or in exile, or living in fear. [...]
Shannon Galpin – who established the first Afghan women’s cycling team a decade ago and has travelled to Afghanistan more than 20 times, often working in Bamiyan province – explains that there are two further levels of discrimination to navigate here: ethnic and gender-based. The Hazara – who are Shi’ite Muslims and seen by the Sunni Taliban as infidels – are a majority in Bamiyan, so female cyclists in Bamiyan are endangered on three fronts. [...]
And it is the cyclists of Bamiyan – along with the original national team members – that are most identifiable and most at threat, Galpin says, due to media attention, a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for the women’s national
team, and their role in documentaries prior to the Taliban’s return.”
BBC, UK to resettle teenage Afghan women footballers and families, 10 October 2021
“Dozens of Afghan girls with promising football careers, who fled the Taliban, have been told they can come to the UK to be resettled, along with their families.
The 35-member squad - aged 13-19 - fled Kabul last month and have been staying for the past few weeks in a hotel
in Pakistan, where their temporary visas were due to expire on Monday.” [...]
“Most of them are from Herat in western Afghanistan and had made their way to Kabul when the Western airlift
started, staying in safe houses.
"Seventy percent of them had received death threats," said Ms Gill. "They were terrified."”
Deutsche Welle, Fleeing Afghan women footballers seek new home from Pakistan, 1 October 2021
“A group of 32 Afghan women football players and their families are seeking safe haven from the Taliban in third countries after fleeing to Pakistan, the former Afghanistan women's team captain said on Friday.
Women's team captain Khalida Popal told DW that some of the players "had their houses burned down and some family members were taken by the Taliban."
Some 135 people — 32 players and coaches as well as their families — "were displaced from their provinces"
because of their involvement in women's football, Popal added.”
Financial Times, The Afghan cricketers living in fear of the Taliban, 28 September 2021
“Here, women can never go into sports. No and never,” said a cricketer on the women’s team, who is still in the country but hopes to leave. “The men’s cricket team makes a lot of money, so [the Taliban] will promote it.” “If they want us to wear long clothes and play, we will accept all that,” she added. “It hurts a lot when your dream
crashes. I don’t want my dream to remain unfulfilled. Not just mine. It’s . . . my entire team’s dream to play again.”
Amnesty International, Afghanistan: The fate of thousands hanging in the balance, 21 September 2021
“In this report, Amnesty International, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation against Torture (OMCT) have documented incidents of human rights violations that have taken place in Afghanistan since the takeover by the Taliban on 15 August”. The report references a number of sources, Including: [...]
· The Guardian, Afghan women to be banned from playing sport, Taliban say, 8 September 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/08/afghan-women-to-be-banned-from-playing-sport-taliban-say
The Guardian, Dozens more female footballers and family members escape Afghanistan, 15 September 2021
“Last week, the Taliban announced that women would be banned from participating in all sports. In an interview with the Australian broadcaster SBS the deputy head of the Taliban’s cultural commission, Ahmadullah Wasiq, said it was “not necessary” for women to be involved in sport and that “Islam and the Islamic Emirate [Afghanistan] do not allow women to play cricket or play cricket or play the kind of sports where they get exposed.”
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Gandhara, Afghan Cricket Board Says Women's Team Could Still Play, 11 September 2021
“The head of the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) has told an Australian broadcaster that the Afghan national
women's team could still be allowed to play cricket.
ACB Chairman Azizullah Fazli told SBS Radio Pashto late on September 10 that the governing body would outline "very soon" how women would be allowed to play -- a development that, if true, would mark a reversal of the Taliban's hard-line stance on the issue.”
BBC News, Afghanistan women’s cricket team: Players hiding in Kabul fear Taliban rule, 1 September 2021
“Asel and many of her international team-mates are in hiding. Asel isn't her real name. In Kabul members of the Taliban have already come looking for Afghanistan's women's cricket team.
"Every woman playing cricket or other sports is not safe right now," she says. "The situation is very bad in Kabul. "We have a group on WhatsApp and every night we are talking about our problems and sharing plans about what we should do. We are all hopeless."
Asel has barely stepped outside her home since the Taliban entered Kabul in mid-August and has locked her cricket kit away. She explains how one of her team-mates was targeted in the city.
"The village where they play cricket, some people who knew them are working with the Taliban. When the Taliban came here and took Kabul they threatened them, saying, 'We may come and kill you if you try to play cricket again,'" Asel says.
Taqwa, who is also using a pseudonym, was involved in Afghan women's cricket for many years. She managed to flee the country after Kabul fell. In the week before she got out, she moved from house to house to avoid being detected. The Taliban called her father, but he said he had not been in contact with her.”