JAKARTA - Afghan karateka Meena Asadi admits she is worried about the careers of female athletes in her country after the Taliban returned to power.
Meena Asadi is a karate athlete who left Afghanistan when she was 12 years old. At that time, he went to Pakistan and began to pursue karate to represent Afghanistan at the 2010 South Asian Games in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
One year after that, Meena Asadi returned to Kabul and opened a karate gym there. However, he again had to leave Afghanistan for the second time after the situation did not improve.
Since then, Meena and her husband and baby have lived in Indonesia.
"I am miserable. I have lost hope and the people of my country have also lost their hope," Meena told Reuters in Cisarua, Bogor.
When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, women there could not work and girls could not go to school.
Women must cover their faces and be accompanied by male relatives to get out of the house. The return of the Taliban in Kabul makes Meena worried that the situation will repeat itself.
"All achievements and values are destroyed, and this will be a dark moment for society, especially for women and girls," said Meena, who is ethnic Hazara and adheres to Shia Islam.
This week, taekwondo athlete Zakia Khudadadi's dreams were shattered as she became the first female Afghan athlete to fail at the Tokyo Paralympics due to chaos in Kabul.
"It's all over for the women," said Meena, the only female athlete to represent Afghanistan at the 2012 South Asian Karate Championships and won two silver medals.
Taliban leaders have been trying to convince Afghans and the international community that women have the right to education and jobs.
But Meena and others are skeptical. "They're an extremist party, and they don't believe in human rights or women's rights," Meena said.
"They will never change. They are the same Taliban."
The majority of Afghan refugees in Indonesia are ethnic Hazara who have been targeted by Sunni militants for decades, including the Taliban and ISIS, because of their ethnicity and most of them have Shia beliefs.
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