Episode 25: Sports & Rights Season – Why the First Female Afghan Olympian Wants the Olympics to Ban Her Country

07/10/24 • 21 min

When we first kicked off our Sports & Rights podcast season, we were in the midst of what is arguably the biggest and most beloved sporting event on the planet – the 2022 FIFA World Cup, held in Qatar. Now, we find ourselves just weeks away from the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics – the perfect time to restart our examination of the intersection of human rights and sports!
In the coming episodes, we will circle back to some of the ideas we raised in our first episode of the season. We’ll talk about sportswashing, athlete activism, the role of sports organizations in upholding and strengthening human rights. But first, we’re going to bring you something a little different and very timely: the story and struggle of a woman named Friba Rezayee.
Just last month, the Lantos Foundation had the privilege of meeting Friba at the Oslo Freedom Forum. Friba has the distinction of being Afghanistan’s first female Olympic athlete, having represented her country in the sport of judo at the 2004 Athens Olympics, just a few short years after the U.S. and its allies toppled the brutal and repressive Taliban regime. Now that the Taliban has regained power, girls and women are once again forbidden from participating in sports.
The International Olympic Committee has agreed to allow a mixed-gender team from Afghanistan compete in Paris – part of its push for the first ever “gender parity Olympics.” But Friba says this move only legitimizes the Taliban regime and uses Afghan female athletes in exile as window dressing for the Games.
Friba has started a petition calling on the IOC to ban Afghanistan from the 2024 Games. Sign it here.
Learn more about her organization: Women Leaders of Tomorrow

Read more:
Afghanistan’s First Female Olympian Calls for Games Ban, Reuters, March 21, 2024
Women Afghan athletes differ on whether Olympic ban will help their cause, CBC, April 15, 2024

The Taliban and the Global Backlash Against Women’s Rights, Human Rights Watch, February 6, 2024
Opinion | The Olympics Should Stand With Afghanistan’s Women Athletes - The New York Times (nytimes.com), July 17, 2024
Watch:
Sports & Politics | The Struggle for Freedom, Explained (via Human Rights Foundation)

Producers: Chelsea Hedquist, Brittany Smith
Audio editor: Brittany Smith
Music: Riorr by Audiorezout

Producers: Chelsea Hedquist, Brittany Smith
Audio editor: Brittany Smith
Music: Riorr by Audiorezout

Previous Episode

Episode 24: Special re-release of “Vladimir Kara-Murza: The Democracy Activist Putin Wants Dead”

On April 11, 2024, we are re-releasing our 2021 episode “The Democracy Activist Putin Wants Dead.” There is a very somber reason for this re-release. This date marks the two-year anniversary of Vladimir Kara-Murza’s arrest and imprisonment on charges of “public dissemination of deliberately false information.” Vladimir, one of the boldest and most eloquent Russian opposition figures, committed the great “crime” of speaking out against Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression on Ukraine. For speaking the truth, he is now serving a 25-year sentence in a remote and notoriously harsh penal colony. Vladimir’s health, already compromised by two nearly fatal poisonings ordered by the Kremlin, is declining. Time is running out. It is imperative for people everywhere to keep advocating for Vladimir’s release, to keep demanding that western governments intervene, to keep reminding the Putin regime that there is a cost to making dissidents into political prisoners. If we hope to hear Vladimir’s voice again one day, speaking out boldly for democracy and human rights in Russia, then we must speak boldly now in calling for his release.

This re-release features a condensed version of the episode created from two conversations that Lantos Foundation President Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett had with Vladimir in late 2020 and early 2021.

Read Vladimir Kara-Murza’s opinion pieces in The Washington Post

Vladimir Kara-Murza’s last statement to Moscow City Court

Write Vladimir a letter

The Price of Conviction podcast (produced by the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights)

Russian dissident Kara-Murza moved to isolation cell in new Siberian prison (Reuters, Jan. 30, 2024)

Next Episode

Episode 26: Sports & Rights Season – Sportswashing

In this episode of our Sports & Rights season, we take an in-depth look at a topic we touched on in the first episode – sportswashing. We speak to journalists, human rights advocates, and academics to help unpack what this term means and why it matters. We also delve into some of the most successful examples of sportswashing, ranging from ancient Egypt right up to the present day. We examine the impact of sportswashing and raise some important questions about who bears responsibility for standing up to the authoritarian regimes that seek to use sports as a form of soft power.

Human Rights Foundation: Celebrities & Dictators

A History of Sports and Dictators (by Karim Zidan, via Human Rights Foundation)
How the NBA got into business with an African dictator (by Mark Fainaru-Wada, via ESPN)

It is time to change how we talk about Saudi sports (by Karim Zidan, via Sports Politika)

Sport & Rights Alliance
Watch:
Sports & Politics | The Struggle for Freedom, Explained (via Human Rights Foundation)

Producers: Chelsea Hedquist, Brittany Smith

Audio editor: Brittany Smith

Music: Riorr by Audiorezout