'Your location has been identified': Ominous Taliban threats harassing this Afghan female individual
"I will decapitate you." another message read.
A torrent of over 5,000 calls and messages flooded Marzieh Hamidi's phone in the days following the Afghan Taekwondo champion's assertion that her nation's male cricket team did not represent her – a woman exiled by the Taliban's prohibition of women's sports.
Hamidi told CNN, "Taekwondo gives me a stronger sense of identity as a woman, to feel more powerful in society."
In Paris, under police protection, Hamidi has become an advocate for women's rights in Afghanistan. This crusade is primarily led by the country's female athletes.
"In Afghanistan, women do not exist as women," she added. "They are nonexistent."
Her compatriot Manizha Talash was disqualified from this year's Paris Olympics for displaying a cape with the message "Free Afghan Women" during breakdancing events.
She was excluded for making a "political protest."
"With these three words, I spoke to the entire world and asked for practical action to support Afghan women. We do not ask for anything special; we only want fundamental human rights," Manizha told CNN.
Sprinter Kimia Yousofi, the country's flagbearer for the Tokyo Games in 2021, avoided a similar ban after revealing a hand-scrawled note after a sprint heat: "Education, Sport, Our Rights."
While Afghan men's teams have significant international freedom to compete, women are barred from sport, required to compete unofficially or in exile to represent refugee teams.
Treated like an outsider
Hamidi recounted her encounter with the Afghan men's team at the Taekwondo World Championships in Azerbaijan last year, competing as a refugee.
Banned from representing her homeland, she said she was treated like a foreigner by her former teammates.
"They are the Taliban's team for me, not the Afghan team," she said, leveling a similar accusation against the Afghan cricket team, demanding the banning of Afghan sports teams from the Olympics, following the bans imposed on South Africa during the apartheid era.
"At the same time, they are competing in international competitions, and the Taliban are killing many women in Afghanistan," she said.
CNN reached out to the Afghanistan Cricket Board and the country's Taekwondo federation for comment.
As reported by Richard Bennett, UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in Afghanistan, the Taliban "eviscerated the rights of women and girls in the name of Islam."
"They have removed or, created a situation where women and girls are unable to participate as full human beings in society," Bennett said, while a recent law "institutionalized this state of discrimination, exclusion, segregation, and denial of human dignity for women and girls."
It was this striking disparity in women's rights – which Hamidi and others label as "gender apartheid" – that pushed her to bring attention to the plight of her fellow Afghan women using the hashtag #LetUsExist.
Gender apartheid was formerly used by Afghan women amidst the first Taliban regime in the late 1990s.
No room for cricket
Despite the dire circumstances for women in Afghanistan, Afghan male teams, such as the highly popular cricket side, are still able to compete internationally.
Cricket is popular in Afghanistan, and the country's national team's emblem still displays the three-colored flag of the regime overthrown by the Taliban, serving as a source of national pride for many, despite the Taliban's ban on women playing cricket.
Hamidi told CNN that the Afghan men's cricket team "is not representing the women of Afghanistan."
In the summer, these statements, such as accusing Afghanistan's male cricketers of "normalizing" the Taliban, sparked a wave of hate.
Female sporting stars have become easy targets for Taliban sympathizers, especially in the diaspora.
Beyond her political opinions, "they are criticizing Marzieh Hamidi for being a woman, for speaking in public, and for dressing in a, let's say, Western way," Hamidi's lawyer Ines Davau told CNN.
The threats toward Hamidi have evolved since the Taliban's repression against women in the 1990s.
"The Taliban, who are now in power in Afghanistan, are very media-savvy and tech-savvy," the UN's Bennett said.
Since departing Afghanistan following the fall of the government in 2021, Hamidi has had to construct a new life in France, while always fearing reprisals for her defiance against the Taliban's oppression of women's rights.
On Instagram and in person, she exudes a defiant desire for life and her dreams of becoming an Olympian. However, relentlessly harassed by threats of murder and rape, Hamidi now lives under constant police protection. The Taliban sympathizers have stolen any semblance of a normal life from her.
"They have quite a sophisticated PR and, perhaps, surveillance system that could penetrate countries abroad as well," the UN's Bennett added. "If there are no repercussions, if there's no backlash over this, misogynists across the world will take note."
Continuing hostility
Months following the first threats, Hamidi still receives chilling messages.
One early October message came from an Instagram user: "I only need three more months until my funds are ready, then I will directly head to Paris, and there I will cut your head off."
Hamidi's phone has been buzzing with calls and messages from various European numbers, most of which are written in English.
Lawyer Davau, working for Hamidi, aims to prove the organized nature of this hate campaign.
The Paris prosecutor's office informed CNN that an investigation is underway, led by France's specialist agency focusing on hate crimes and human rights violations, regarding the threats against Hamidi.
"There's a clear call to target her Instagram profile with insults, intimidation, and threats," Davau explained to CNN.
Although some directly threaten physical harm against the youth athlete, others seem less threatening: shared Afghan cricket players' gifs, left without comments on several of Hamidi's posts, seemingly unrelated to the post's topic.
"Even seemingly passive participation can be considered harassment," Davau pointed out, "willingly joining an action that harms someone's well-being is a form of harassment, according to French law."
Initially, Hamidi felt like she was back in Kabul when she first encountered the threats. Yet, despite being alone in France, she remains determined and unfazed.
"They want to make us non-existent in Afghanistan," she stated. "I aim to prove to them that we are resilient."
Despite the threats and hate messages, Hamidi remains active in promoting women's rights in sports and continues to use her platform, such as her Instagram account, to advocate for Afghan women. The hate messages she receives often contain violent language, with one message threatening to decapitate her in three months.
Furthermore, Hamidi's advocacy for women's rights in sports has led to a significant backlash, not just from Taliban sympathizers but also from some sections of the Afghan community. Despite this, she continues to stand firm and believes that through her activism, she can help bring about positive change for women in Afghanistan, showing that they exist and are resilient.
