Taliban trolling, rape and death threats haunt Afghan taekwondo champion

Taliban critic and Paris Olympics competitor Marzieh Hamidi is used to facing online abuse – but says it reached new levels this week after she criticised her country’s men’s cricket team. She speaks to Arpan Rai

Marzieh Hamidi, Afghan taekwondo champion, seen here on the steps of Pont Marie station in Paris, France (Guillaume Blot)

“Wh***”, “Prostitute”, “Sl**”. Taekwondo champion Marzieh Hamidi has come to expect this kind of language, waiting to greet her whenever she opens social media, after two years of advocating for the rights of Afghan women and criticising the country’s misogynist Taliban regime.

When she competed at this summer’s Paris Olympics as part of the international refugee team, Hamidi spoke about her dream of winning a medal “for all Afghan women” and of her pain at seeing her country taken over by an Islamist militant group that has imposed restrictions on almost every aspect of women’s lives.

The Taliban published its first detailed set of written laws last week, featuring a legal requirement for women to cover their entire bodies, including faces, when stepping out of the home. Women are also banned from reading, singing, or speaking in public.

Hamidi expected the usual response from Taliban supporters when she criticised these laws in a media interview. What she did not foresee was the new torrent of abuse she received for suggesting that the country’s successful men’s cricket team should do more to condemn the abuse of women in Afghanistan, after captain Rashid Khan was pictured meeting with members of the powerful Taliban-linked Haqqani family.

The backlash was immediate. “They are sending me pictures of their private parts, threatening to hunt me down and rape me. They say they are waiting in bed for me and send me emoji of a pregnant lady. In one of the photos, where I am wearing a top, they tell me they will cut my nipples and other body parts.”

Hamidi fled Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover, and has been granted asylum in France (Guillaume Blot)

Hamidi took issue with members of the Afghan cricket team meeting with and being congratulated by Taliban leaders after their strong performance at the T20 World Cup in June this year. It isn’t the first time members of the team or the country’s cricketing board have met with Taliban officials, with senior players previously responding to the backlash by saying they “don’t want politics brought into sports”.

Photos have shown Khan in the company of Anas Haqqani – a leader in the hardline Islamist government and brother of Sirajuddin Haqqani, a senior Taliban minister who is subject to a $10m (£7.6m) bounty from the US State Department. The Independent has approached Khan’s representatives for comment.

Fans of Khan and the Afghan cricket team started flooding Hamidi’s inbox with “d*** pics”, she tells The Independent over a video call from France, where she was granted asylum after the fall of Kabul in August 2021. “I usually don’t check my DMs, they are filled with trashy messages from Taliban supporters.”

The Independent has seen examples of the death and rape threats made to Hamidi, including graphic images, and many warn her to “never speak again”. “But I am used to these d*** pics ever since I started talking about freeing Afghan women from the Taliban’s clutches. I receive them frequently, but the tipping point was more than a thousand threat calls from unknown numbers after the interview ,” she says.

“I could not touch or use my phone. I disconnected a call and then another came and another, all telling me how dare I say anything about Rashid Khan and the Taliban,” she says.

Hamidi competed in the women’s 57kg category at the Paris Olympics, representing the international refugee team (Guillaume Blot)

At 22, Hamidi describes herself as the Taliban’s nightmare personified; a confident and independent woman, donning colourful clothes, leaving her hair uncovered and – most importantly – making her voice heard.

She started the hashtag #LetUsExist in solidarity with her friends and sisters back home last week after the Taliban issued its decree banning women’s voices from being heard outside their homes, the latest in a long series of dystopian rules.

She estimates that when she woke up on Sunday, there were close to 3,000 calls and messages from unknown numbers on her phone. Hamidi says she went to the police and handed over the device, and an investigation was launched on Tuesday over any death threats received from cricket fans in France, as well as the leaking of her private phone number.

“I had to get a new number and the police have given me a bodyguard now, in case of any physical attack on me in France,” she says, adding that her family have been physically targeted in Germany. An unknown man stopped Hamidi’s father this week and asked her why he had allowed his daughter to “wear such clothes” and “talk about Afghanistan”. Her mother and sister made rushed calls and asked her if she wanted to “continue doing this”.

“This [suits] the terrorists in Afghanistan, the Taliban. They want to see me silenced and dead. I will never stop talking about how they have written off women from Afghanistan, declared them missing and voiceless,” Hamidi says. “They are nobody to tell me how to dress and how to talk.”