HERAT, Afghanistan, March 18 (IPS) – When Khadija Ahmadzada was arrested in Herat province of Afghanistan in January this yr, it sparked widespread home and worldwide protests. Ladies’s rights activists and social media customers raised their voices with slogans reminiscent of “Sport will not be against the law,” “Training is a proper for ladies,” and “Don’t erase ladies,” typically utilizing the hashtag #BeHerVoice.
On the time of her arrest, the UN Particular Rapporteur on human rights, Richard Bennett, had known as for the instant launch of taekwondo coach Khadija Ahmadzada, expressing deep concern over her detention by the Taliban.
She has since been launched however the outcry underlined the necessity for supporting Afghan ladies athletes, which activists all over the world identified is a collective duty and warned that remaining silent within the face of oppression carries harmful penalties.
Khadija Ahmadzada, 22, was an award-winning taekwondo athlete and coach of Afghanistan’s nationwide youth group in the course of the republic period. When the Taliban got here to energy, she tried to maintain the game alive for ladies and women, creating alternatives for them to coach, study, and transfer ahead at a time when these alternatives had been steadily disappearing.
Herat was as soon as a metropolis the place ladies’s sports activities golf equipment thrived. The ladies had been extremely motivated and recorded many achievements. The facilities weren’t merely locations for bodily coaching; additionally they served as instructional, social, and empowerment areas for ladies and women. Following the Taliban’s return to Afghanistan, all ladies’s sports activities services had been shut down, and feminine athletes had been categorically barred from persevering with their actions.
Sports activities golf equipment have been closed to ladies since 2021, shortly after the Taliban returned to energy, including to a raft of measures put in place based mostly on the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islamic legislation. On the time, it was claimed they’d reopen when a “protected atmosphere” had been established. However as of January 2026, no sports activities membership has reopened, and girls are nonetheless barred from competitors.
Recognized not solely as a talented athlete but additionally a decided and dedicated coach, Khadija Ahmadzada continued her work quietly below the Taliban’s strict restrictions, guaranteeing that girls who needed to coach might nonetheless discover a approach. However her efforts didn’t stay hidden. In January 2026, she was arrested.
Her arrest highlights the extreme stress on energetic ladies in Afghanistan and displays how they’re pressured to take forbidden paths to guard their primary rights and keep a part of society.
Khadija Ahmadzada was educated in taekwondo professionally on the Jumong Taekwondo Academy in Herat below the steerage of Korean specialists. Inside a short while, she grew to become a member of Afghanistan’s nationwide youth group and gained medals in home and regional competitions. She started educating and coaching women in taekwondo after ending her skilled athletic profession.
One in all Khadija Ahmadzada’s college students, who requested to stay nameless for security causes stated, “she is a talented and devoted coach, and I’m happy with her braveness and selflessness”. When the Taliban’s morality police got here to arrest Khadija, she assisted her college students depart the membership quietly whereas she stayed behind in defiance of the Taliban’s guidelines and was detained.
Within the early days after Herat fell to the Taliban in August 2021, they started a gradual technique of shutting down ladies and women’ sports activities facilities in phases. First the regime’s morality police issued verbal orders to operators of sports activities facilities. The screws had been tightened additional in subsequent actions by confiscating gear, locking up the gates of sports activities golf equipment and arrests of the house owners and coaches.
Khadija’s two weeks in jail put large stress on her household. They repeatedly appealed to native representatives, neighborhood elders, and officers to assist safe her launch. Khadija was lastly launched after 13 days of imprisonment with a written pledge to not repeat the offense. But her freedom was much less an finish to struggling than a reminder of a life endured below Afghanistan’s Taliban.
Khadija established an underground taekwondo coaching program within the Jebraeil neighborhood of Herat, which has change into an emblem of girls’s resistance towards the Taliban’s strict restrictions. She famous that earlier than the Taliban got here, many ladies had been energetic on this discipline and earned a dwelling via it. When the Taliban took over, sports activities halls had been closed by their orders, ladies’s groups had been disbanded, and feminine athletes and coaches both stayed at house or left the nation. Amongst those that remained, ladies had been pressured to decide on between full silence or quiet resistance. Khadija was a type of who selected the latter.
IPS UN Bureau
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