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."
The former taekwondo champion went on to explain that her police protection began after a subsequent interview, during which she criticised Afghanistan's national cricket team for "normalising [the] Taliban". She recalled that afterwards, fans from the team "started attacking me on social media first by writing bad comments". She later received a call from a person "shouting on me and telling me: 'I have your address in Paris'".
Hamidi said she went on to receive calls from "Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, France, European countries and America", along with many explicit threats on her life sent to her on Instagram, which led her to turn to the French police for protection.
Read moreFrance probes online threats against Afghan taekwondo fighter
Asked about August 15, 2021, the day the Taliban returned to power in the wake of the chaotic US exit from Afghanistan, Hamidi called it "a sad day for all of us".
"When I saw the Taliban in the streets, I said: 'How is this possible?' It felt like a scary movie," she recalled. "Still now, I cannot accept what happened."
The Afghan exile noted that she has "received many messages [of support] from French people: president of the Senate, mayor of Paris, minister of the interior and also minister of sport".
But as regards Afghanistan and the situation of Afghan women, she regretted that "people are silent, especially women in the West".
Hamidi insisted that as human beings, it is "our duty to speak out for Afghan women and to be their voice because they are voiceless and in the prison of the Taliban".
