‘Dying for peace:’ Afghanistan’s first female Olympian says women will not give up their liberties easily

Friba Rezayee made history in 2004 when she became one of the first two Afghan women to compete at the Olympic Games.

When the judoka competed in Athens, her father and one of her brothers told her it was as if she had taken the “first step on the moon.”

It wasn’t just a special moment for Rezayee: it was a momentous moment for women across Afghanistan. The judoka was now a symbol for a society that, although far from perfect, was finally changing.

Women had more opportunities and the future, after years of Taliban rule in the 1990s where basic human rights were taken away from them, was looking brighter.

But now the Taliban has returned to power in Afghanistan and Rezayee fears that the progress that has been made for women’s lives over the last 20 years will be lost.

Taliban leaders have recently expressed their commitment to a “blanket amnesty” for all in Afghanistan, including members of the Afghan military and interpreters, but Rezayee says the future will be bleak for women in the country.

“After they [the Taliban] settle down, they have their government established, they will go after the individuals who spoke against them,” Rezayee, 33, told CNN Sport.

“Women who went to school, women who went to universities and women who played sports.”

Born and raised in Afghanistan, Rezayee moved to Canada as a refugee in 2011 and has since set up a non-profit organization, ‘Women Leaders of Tomorrow,’ which advocates for women’s rights in Afghanistan.

The initiative GOAL (Girls of Afghanistan Lead) also looks to support female judokas to compete and represent their country on the global stage.

Since the Taliban swept into the capital of Kabul, Rezayee says the women she works with now fear for their lives.

“I’m in contact with them every day. They send me heartbreaking messages,” she said.

“Recently, the Afghan female athletes visited the dojo (judo training gym). They held each other’s hands. They hugged each other. They also kissed the mats because that was the last time they’re going to see them and that was the last day of their freedom.

“They’re also sending me messages, pleading for their life, for their safety. All these women leaders or human rights, women’s rights activists want to flee the country. They want to flee the Taliban for obvious reasons.”

Friba Rezayee in Vancouver, Canada, where she moved in 2011.

‘A movement for freedom, for liberty, for life’

Rezayee says she still remembers the brutality and oppression of the Taliban’s “unimaginable” regime.

She fled to Pakistan with her family after the start of the group’s first rule in 1996 but returned after the US invasion in 2001 and set about making the most of newfound freedoms.

It was as a refugee in Pakistan that Rezayee says she fell in love with boxing.

She remembers watching heavyweight champion Mike Tyson on a small crackling TV screen and being inspired by Laila Ali, the daughter of sporting legend Muhammad Ali.

“I fell in love with how powerful Laila Ali was, what an icon she was. I wanted to do the same thing,” says Rezayee.

On her return to Afghanistan, she enrolled at an all-girls school and started training with a boxing coach, feeling empowered by the sport.

“The last two decades, Afghan women worked so hard, they had so many achievements,” she said.

“Women went to school, they had careers. Women ran for office, women ran businesses – you name it – the Afghan women did.”

US soldiers fire artillery in Afghanistan's Kandahar province in June 2011. Operation Enduring Freedom was launched in October 2001 to stop the Taliban regime from providing a safe haven to al Qaeda and to stop al Qaeda's use of Afghanistan as a base of operations for terrorist activities.

Thousands of Taliban supporters rally in Quetta, Pakistan, near the Afghan border, on October 1, 2001.

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is seen at an undisclosed location in this television image broadcast on October 7, 2001. Bin Laden praised God for the September 11 attacks and swore America "will never dream of security" until "the infidel's armies leave the land of Muhammad."

A Tomahawk cruise missile is launched from a US ship in the Arabian Sea on October 7, 2001. American and British forces began airstrikes in Afghanistan, targeting al Qaeda and the Taliban regime that had been giving al Qaeda protection.

Members of the Afghan Northern Alliance, an anti-Taliban group, kill a wounded Taliban fighter they found while advancing toward Kabul, Afghanistan, in November 2001. US airstrikes and Northern Alliance ground attacks led to the fall of Kabul that month.

An Afghan Northern Alliance fighter bursts into laughter as US planes strike a Taliban position near Tora Bora, Afghanistan, in December 2001. Afghan militia leaders declared victory in the battle of Tora Bora and claimed to have captured al Qaeda's last base.

Renae Chapman holds her 2-year-old daughter, Amanda, during the funeral service for her husband, Army Sgt. 1st Class Nathan R. Chapman, in Fort Lewis, Washington, in January 2002. He was the first US soldier to be killed by enemy fire during the war in Afghanistan.

Mohboba, 7, stands near a bullet-ridden wall in Kabul as she waits to be seen at a health clinic in March 2002. She had a skin ailment that plagued many poverty-stricken children in Afghanistan.

US soldier Jorge Avino tallies the number of people that his mortar team had killed while fighting in Afghanistan in March 2002.

A man and his son watch US soldiers prepare to sweep their home in southeastern Afghanistan in November 2002.

Women wait in line to be treated at a health clinic in Kalakan, Afghanistan, in February 2003.

Mohammaed Mahdi, who lost his foot in a mine explosion, waits for a Red Cross doctor at his home in Kabul in August 2004. This photo was taken by Associated Press photographer Emilio Morenatti, who five years later lost part of his leg when the armored vehicle he was in hit a roadside bomb.

Afghans in Kabul line up to vote in the country's first democratic election in October 2004. Hamid Karzai was sworn in as President in December of that year.

An Afghan soldier provides security at the site where a US helicopter crashed near Ghazni, Afghanistan, in April 2005. At least 16 people were killed.

US President George W. Bush attends a news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the Presidential Palace in Kabul in March 2006. It was Bush's first visit to Afghanistan.

Girls at the Bibi Mahroo High School raise their hands during an English class in Kabul in November 2006. After the fall of the Taliban, millions of Afghan girls were able to attend school and get the education that their mothers couldn't.

British Marines take cover during an anti-Taliban operation near Kajaki, Afghanistan, in March 2007. Many other countries also deployed troops to the country.

Supplies are dropped to US troops in Afghanistan's Ghazni province in May 2007.

Afghan students recite Islamic prayers at an outdoor classroom in the remote Wakhan Corridor in September 2007.

US Army Spc. Brandon Olson sinks onto a bunker embankment in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley in September 2007. The Korengal Valley was the site of some of the deadliest combat in the region.

US Marine Sgt. Nicholas Bender launches a Raven surveillance drone near the remote village of Baqwa, Afghanistan, in March 2009.

US soldiers take defensive positions after receiving fire from Taliban positions in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley in May 2009. Army Spc. Zachary Boyd was still in his "I love NY" boxers because he rushed from his sleeping quarters to join his fellow platoon members.?

US soldiers shield their eyes from the rotor wash of a Chinook helicopter as they are picked up from a mission in Afghanistan's Paktika province in October 2009.

Children watch a Canadian soldier conducting a dusk patrol in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in October 2009.

US soldiers fire mortars from a base in Afghanistan's Kunar province in October 2009.

Troops rest at an airfield in Afghanistan's Helmand province in February 2010.

Afghan soldiers rush a wounded police officer to an American helicopter in Afghanistan's Kunar province in March 2010.

Village elders meet in Marja, Afghanistan, in March 2010.

Sgt. Brian Keith sits with his wife, Sara, and their baby son, Stephen, just before his deployment to Afghanistan in March 2010. A few months earlier, President Barack Obama announced a surge of 30,000 additional troops. This new deployment would bring the US total to almost 100,000 troops, in addition to 40,000 NATO troops.?

US troops, aboard a C-17 transport plane, head to Afghanistan in April 2010.

US soldiers recover an armored vehicle that was hit by an explosive device in Afghanistan's Kunduz province in April 2010.

Schoolgirls are seen through the window of a Humvee as they wave to a passing American convoy in Herat, Afghanistan, in June 2010.

A man cries while talking to US soldiers in Naghma Bazaar, Afghanistan, in September 2010. The man said Taliban fighters had forced their way into his home and demanded food and milk before getting into a firefight with American soldiers.

Halawasha, right, and an Afghan National Police member hold her young sister Shokria as a US Army medic wraps her serious burns in Now Ruzi, Afghanistan, in October 2010. US soldiers were on a routine patrol when they came across Shokria, whose forearms were burned with scalding milk during a household accident five days earlier. Medics dressed the burns and began working with local Afghan military to have the girl driven to a nearby hospital.

An Afghan man is detained by US Marines after they battled Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan's Helmand province in November 2010.

President Barack Obama and members of his national security team monitor the Navy SEALs raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011. "Fourteen people crammed into the room, the President sitting in a folding chair on the corner of the table's head,"?said CNN's Peter Bergen as he relived the bin Laden raid five years later.?"They sat in this room until the SEALs returned to Afghanistan."?(Editor's note: The classified document in front of Hillary Clinton was obscured by the White House.)

US Marine Cpl. Burness Britt reacts after being lifted onto a medevac helicopter in June 2011. A large piece of shrapnel from an improvised explosive device cut a major artery on his neck near Sangin, Afghanistan. This photo was taken by Anja Niedringhaus, an Associated Press photographer who was fatally shot in Afghanistan in 2014.

US soldiers work out at a post in Afghanistan's Kunar province in September 2011.

Tarana Akbari, 12, screams after a suicide bomber attacked the Abul Fazel Shrine in Kabul, Afghanistan, in December 2011.?Twin bomb blasts?killed dozens of Afghan people on the holy day of Ashura.

In this long-exposure photo, a jet takes off from the flight deck of the USS John C. Stennis, an aircraft carrier that was in the northern Arabian Sea in January 2012.

Afghan soldiers, left, and American troops blow up a Taliban firing position in the Afghan village of Layadira in February 2013.

Lesleigh Coyer lies down in front of the grave of her brother, Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Coyer, at Virginia's Arlington National Cemetery in March 2013. He died of complications from an injury sustained in Afghanistan.

Samiullah, 8 months old and malnourished, is held by his mother, Islam Bibi, at a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Lashgar Gar, Afghanistan, in September 2013.

An Afghan army convoy travels Highway 1 in Afghanistan's Wardak province in November 2013. The picture at right shows Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Afghan Army Sgt. Sayed Wazir screams a prayer while firing a rocket in Afghanistan's Wardak province in November 2013.

A woman is rushed from the scene of a suicide car bombing in Kabul in December 2013.

Blood-stained Pakistani bank notes are displayed on the body of a dead suicide bomber after an attack in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in March 2014. Police said they found the bank notes in his pocket. Three insurgents tried to storm the former headquarters of Afghanistan's intelligence service in southern Kandahar. They died in a gunbattle with security forces, officials said.

US President Barack Obama walks with the parents of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl after making a statement at the White House about?Bergdahl's release in May 2014.?Bergdahl had been held captive in Afghanistan for nearly five years, and the Taliban released him in exchange for five U.S.-held prisoners.

This photo shows the aftermath of an American airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, in October 2015. The hospital was?"accidentally struck"?by US bombs after Afghan forces called for air support, said Gen. John Campbell, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan.

American service members ride in a helicopter on the way to the Bagram Air Base near Kabul in September 2017. President Donald Trump had recently announced a plan to increase troops in the country.

President Donald Trump visits Afghanistan's Bagram Air Base in November 2019.

Two children pass members of a Taliban Red Unit in Afghanistan's Laghman province in March 2020. A month earlier, the United States and the Taliban signed a historic agreement.

US soldiers retrieve their bags in Fort Drum, New York, in December 2020, after returning home from a nine-month deployment to Afghanistan.

President Joe Biden speaks from the White House Treaty Room in April 2021. Biden formally announced his decision to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan before September 11.

A member of Afghanistan's security forces walks at Bagram Air Base after the last American troops departed the compound in July 2021. It marked the end of the American presence at a sprawling compound that became the center of military power in Afghanistan.

A member of the Afghan Special Forces drives a Humvee during a combat mission against the Taliban in July 2021. Danish Siddiqui, the Reuters photographer who took this photo,?was killed days later during clashes in Afghanistan.?Siddiqui had been a photographer for Reuters since 2010, and he was the news agency's chief photographer in India. He was also part of a Reuters team that won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography covering Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar.

Hanif, who was struck in the temple by a stray bullet, and his older brother, Mohammed, are seen at the Mirwais Regional Hospital in Kandahar in August 2021. Kandahar had been under siege for a month, and it would soon fall to the Taliban.

Taliban fighters sit inside the presidential palace in Kabul in August 2021. The palace was handed over to the Taliban after being vacated hours earlier by Afghan government officials. Many of Afghanistan's major cities had already fallen to the insurgent group with little to no resistance.

People climb atop a plane at Kabul's international airport after the Taliban retook the capital a day earlier. Hundreds of people poured onto the tarmac, desperately seeking a route out of Afghanistan.

A man carries a bloodied child as a wounded woman lies on the street after Taliban fighters fired guns and lashed out with whips, sticks and sharp objects to control a crowd outside the airport in Kabul in August 2021. "The violence was indiscriminate," Los Angeles Times photographer Marcus Yam told CNN. "I even watched one Taliban fighter, after firing some shots in the general direction of the crowd, smiling at another Taliban fighter — as though it were a game to them or something."

People sit inside a military aircraft during an evacuation from Kabul in August 2021. The US Air Force evacuated approximately 3,000 people from Kabul's international airport that day, according to a White House official. The official said the group contained nearly 350 US citizens, family members of US citizens, Special Immigrant Visa applicants and their families, and other vulnerable Afghans. Some civilian charter flights had also departed the Kabul airport in the previous 24 hours.

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Ruhullah, 16, mourns during the burial of his father, Hussein, a former police officer who was killed in the suicide bombing at the airport in Kabul. Ruhullah survived the blast but did not know his father had died until he made his way back to his family the next day.

People gather around the incinerated husk of a vehicle that was hit by a US drone strike in Kabul in August 2021. Ten members of one family — including seven children — were killed in the strike. In September, a US military investigation found that the vehicle targeted was likely not a threat associated with ISIS-K, according to Gen. Frank McKenzie, the top general of US Central Command. McKenzie told reporters that the strike was a "mistake" and offered an apology.

Biden and other officials watch as flag-draped cases carrying the remains of American service members killed in Afghanistan return to the United States in August 2021.

US Army Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue, commanding general of the 82nd Airborne, boards a C-17 military transport plane to depart Kabul on August 31, 2021. He was the last US soldier to leave the country.

Taliban fighters storm the Kabul airport after the US military completed its withdrawal.

20 years in Afghanistan: America's longest war

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Finding judo

Except not all sections of Afghan society were ready to accept these freedoms for women.

Rezayee says she started to receive death threats and her coach eventually said it was too dangerous to keep training. The coach put her in touch with another trainer, who introduced her to judo.

With the help of a charity, she fell in love with the martial arts discipline and trained alongside two other girls – the only women in the entire country to compete in judo, she says.

“It was a milestone for us and a significant moment,” Rezayee added.

“[It was] very dangerous because the society was not ready to see female athletes at that time because they were just finishing and just coming out of the dark regime of the Taliban.

“It was extremely dangerous, but I would train hard. I did not care about the social stigma, what my relatives and the society…said.

“I believed in myself and I believed in the other girls and I believed in the sport.”

KABUL, AFGANISTAN - AUGUST 13 : Displaced Afghan women and children from Kunduz are seen at a mosque that is sheltering them on August 13, 2021 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Tensions are high as the Taliban advance on the capital city after taking Herat and the country's second-largest city Kandahar. (Photo by Paula Bronstein /Getty Images)

Related article The Taliban knocked on her door 3 times. The fourth time, they killed her

After competing locally, Rezayee was eventually selected to represent her country at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

She was one of only two Afghan women to compete in Greece – the other being 100m sprinter Robina Muqim Yaar – but the scheduling of the judo and track and field events ensured Rezayee was the first woman to step into official competition, she says.

She faced a four-time world champion from Spain and lost in the first round but nonetheless made an indelible mark on Afghanistan’s history.

“I did not win. I was very sad, I was heartbroken. I called my father and my older brother back in Afghanistan and said that I was so sorry I didn’t win, I let you down,” she said.

“But my father and one of my brothers said: ‘Don’t worry, you didn’t win, but you made history.’”

However, on her return to Afghanistan, Rezayee says she was forced into hiding for a few months.

She said fundamentalists in the country “wanted her dead” and that she also feared for the safety of her family.

After a family tragedy in 2005, Rezayee fled to Pakistan again before finally seeking refuge in Canada in 2011.

She has not returned to her beloved country since 2013 but has no regrets about her decision to represent Afghan women on the global stage.

“I wanted to show the patriarchy in Afghanistan that women are equal (to) men and they can participate,” she said.

“And I also wanted the women’s competition, women’s sports, women’s rights to be very normal in the eyes of the patriarchy and other people and also to show to the world that there are women in Afghanistan and they play sport.”

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Updated 4:40 PM EDT, Sat August 21, 2021

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Malala: 'This is a call to humanity'

11:58 - Source: CNN

‘We will become a resistance group’

Watching the news unfold over the last few days has devastated Rezayee, and she says she is frightened of what this regime will do.

Despite their public pronouncements, she doesn’t believe that the Taliban have changed and called on world leaders to topple the newly formed regime.

More positively, she believes there is still a chance that women can represent Afghanistan at future Olympic Games. She is working on a project to send Afghan women judokas to Paris in 2024 and called on the world’s sporting governing bodies to assist Afghan athletes.

In a statement to CNN, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said it was “monitoring the situation and is in contact with the sport community in Afghanistan.”

“At the same time, we have forwarded relevant information to a number of responsible governments. For obvious reasons of security of concerned people, we would not comment further at this stage,” the statement continued.

CNN has also contacted the Afghan Olympic Committee but has yet to receive a response.

Despite the chaos and traumatic pictures coming from the country this week, Rezayee still has hope.

That, she says, is something the Taliban can never take away from the women of Afghanistan.

“My message to Afghan women in Afghanistan right now is to stay strong. This is a nightmare, but nightmares don’t last very long,” she said.

“We will make this through. If nothing else, we will become a resistance group. We will fight for our rights no matter what.

“Once, we lost our rights in the 1990s – we are not going to let that happen again. Stay strong. Stay in touch. Also stay very intelligent.

“I believe in peace. Peace, prosperity and human rights will prevail.

“Everybody’s dying for peace.”