The Afgan sprinter Kimia Yousofi finished last in the Olympic 100-meter race, but it was never about winning a medal for her.
She used her moment of fame to send a message on women’s rights to the ruling Taliban — and the world.
“Education. Sport. Our Rights,” said a handwritten note on the back of Yousofi’s race bib that she held up tio the cameras.
“I am fighting for a land where the terrorists came. If they get into your house, you say, ‘OK, get out, this is my house.’ What should I feel? They took my land,” she said after the race. “No one in Afghanistan recognizes them as the government. No one. They cannot talk. I can talk,” said Yousofi.
Under Taliban rule, women have been banned from attending University and restricted from traveling without a male chaperone, as well as banning them from public spaces.
According to the UN, Afgan is the most repressive country in the world for women’s rights.
Yousofi is safe from the Taliban as she relocated to Australia years ago.