Every step is a sign of resistance: Before the Taliban came back to power, women in Afghanistan could still do sports.
Image: Keith MacIntosh
Gone are the days when the Afghanistan marathon gave hope for better times. Because the Taliban do not tolerate any run in which women take part. Nevertheless, the organizers dare a new edition.
WITHEinab Rezaie remembers the past, something that is no longer allowed to be. It was 2017, the young woman ran the Afghanistan marathon. 3000 meters above sea level, thin air, uphill between sharp rocks, every step a challenge. The headscarf flapped in the sharp October wind. Strangers shouted for her to stop.
But Rezaie kept walking. Every step she took was a sign of resistance. A sign of what was possible in her war-weary homeland: a woman who is allowed to walk. “I felt the cold and the pain coursing through my whole body. I thought I wouldn’t be able to do this run,” Rezaie, now 26, told the FAZ over the phone. “But then I thought that here I have a unique opportunity that very few women in my country ever get. That gave me strength back then.”
