{"id":37252,"date":"2021-09-23T22:01:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-23T13:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2021\/sep\/23\/we-buried-our-sportswear-afghan-women-fear-fight-is-over-for-martial-arts-taliban"},"modified":"2021-09-23T22:01:00","modified_gmt":"2021-09-23T13:01:00","slug":"we-buried-our-sportswear-afghan-women-fear-fight-is-over-for-martial-arts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=37252","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We buried our sportswear\u2019: Afghan women fear fight is over for martial arts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Female taekwondo and karate trainers are forced to practise in secret since the Taliban takeover and fear they may never compete again<\/p>\n<p>On the morning of 15 August, when the Taliban were at the gates of Kabul, Soraya, a martial arts trainer in the Afghan capital, woke up with a sense of dread. \u201cIt was as though the sun had lost its colour,\u201d she says. That day she taught what would be her last karate class at the gym she had started to teach women self-defence skills. \u201cBy 11am we had to say our goodbyes to our students. We didn\u2019t know when we would see each other again,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>Soraya is passionate about martial arts and its potential to transform women\u2019s minds and bodies. \u201cSport has no gender; it is about good health. I haven\u2019t read anywhere in Qur\u2019an that prevents women from participating in sports to stay healthy,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2021\/sep\/23\/we-buried-our-sportswear-afghan-women-fear-fight-is-over-for-martial-arts-taliban\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Female taekwondo and karate trainers are forced to practise in secret since the Taliban takeover and fear they may never compete againOn the morning of 15 August, when the Taliban were at the gates of Kabul, Soraya, a martial arts trainer in the Afghan&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2600,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46,407,346,53,86,744,2345,61,203,44,281,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-fitness","category-health","category-human-rights","category-law","category-mental-health","category-sharia-law","category-south-and-central-asia","category-sport","category-taliban","category-women","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2600"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37253,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37252\/revisions\/37253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}