Iran's sole female Olympic medalist says she's defected
Source: CNN International
"Let me start with a greeting, a farewell or condolences," the 21-year--old wrote in an Instagram post explaining why she was defecting. "I am one of the millions of oppressed women in Iran who they have been playing with for years."
Alizadeh became the first Iranian woman to win an Olympic medal after claiming taekwondo bronze in the -57kg category during the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Affectionately known in Iran as "The Tsunami," Alizadeh announced she was leaving her birth country with searing criticism the regime in Tehran.
"They took me wherever they wanted. I wore whatever they said. Every sentence they ordered me to say, I repeated. Whenever they saw fit, they exploited me," she wrote, adding that credit always went to those in charge.
"I wasn't important to them. None of us mattered to them, we were tools," Alizadeh goes on to say, explaining that while the regime celebrated her medals, it criticized the sport she had chosen: "The virtue of a woman is not to stretch her legs!"
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/12/middleeast/iran-kimia-alizadeh-defects/index.html
I'm surprised not so much that she wanted to defect but that she followed through with it, considering she left family behind and the Iranian government isn't going to be happy with them.
dewsgirl
(14,961 posts)although with heightened tensions in the area, they could use them as an example.😳
gab13by13
(21,385 posts)or if he loses and refuses to step down, how long before we start defecting?
McKim
(2,412 posts)We will see massive brain drain if Trump is reelected. Our daughter with an MD PhD professor of medicine is talking New Zealand. Many have already quietly left.
a la izquierda
(11,797 posts)Im planning to leave. I dont have the strength to teach history in a country so devoid of curiosity and with such a cavalier attitude towards facts and knowledge.
Human rights law, here I come.
DesertRat
(27,995 posts)She's talking about moving to New Zealand too. She and her husband were married last year and honeymooned in NZ. They don't want to raise a family here if DT remains in office. And I know they aren't the only ones.
mdbl
(4,973 posts)and the way Drumpf treats our federal civil servants? The resemblance is uncanny.
dware
(12,423 posts)and then others made it all about Trump.
Funny how that always seems to happen.
Raine
(30,540 posts)this thread to be ALL about her not make it about Trump.
dware
(12,423 posts)onetexan
(13,056 posts)ancianita
(36,130 posts)safety and peace.
Freedom, even if only for a while, is better than a whole life in submission of one's free will.
rollin74
(1,987 posts)wishing her and her family safety
Polybius
(15,465 posts)Either the article didn't say or I missed it.
JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,362 posts)It wasn't clear that it was her new home, or just a haven until she finds a new home.