Storm Track Intimidation: An Afghan Girl Defies the Islamists

A teenage Afghan girl refuses to be intimidated by the religion of peace and tolerance – including death threats because she wants to compete in the 2008 Olympics.

Mehboba Ahdyar, a shy 19-year-old from Kabul, will face the worlds best 1,500-metre runners in August wearing a veil and a baggy tracksuit. While she is unlikely to mount the winner's podium, few of her opponents will have endured such a perilous training regime to get them to the Games.

Training for Mehboba begins after nightfall. At 8.30pm, when Kabul residents are transfixed by the daily episode of the country's most popular soap opera, a racy Indian drama named ‘Because a Mother-in-Law was Once a Daughter-in-Law Too’, Mehboba slips out of her house in a poor suburb and starts running.

She runs up and down the streets for the duration of the programme. It is the only time when, as a woman, she can supplement her official training sessions without threats or harassment.

That’s interesting. A soap opera so compelling that the fundamentalists are at home watching TV and not on the streets? Still, there’s other ways to harass her.

Read the rest at The Gathering Storm.