FRANCE 24 spoke to Marzieh Hamidi, a former taekwondo champion for Afghanistan who has been a refugee in France since 2021, when the Taliban returned to power. In late August of this year, she posted a video on social media denouncing "gender apartheid" in her home country. Since early September, when she began receiving death threats, she has been under police protection.
"When I saw that the Taliban announced that women are not allowed to even speak in public, I thought: it's time to invite everyone around the world to stand with Afghan women and also to fight against gender apartheid. So I launched #LetUsExist, because now in Afghanistan women do not exist," Hamidi explained, referring to a video she posted on social media in late August. "We want the world to recognise gender apartheid as a crime against humanity and against women in Afghanistan."
