Australian Taekwondo relocates seven female athletes to Melbourne after rescue mission
Seven female taekwondo athletes who fought their way out of Taliban controlled Afghanistan will call Melbourne home after an Australian Taekwondo-led effort.
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Seven female taekwondo athletes who fled Taliban controlled Afghanistan will now call Melbourne home.
After a high-risk evacuation to Australia, the group will start their new life in Australia after finishing their quarantine period this week.
Australian Taekwondo, the Australian Government and Oceania Taekwondo combined to arrange the rescue mission.
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“We’re really pleased the ladies are safe and incredibly grateful for the assistance of the Australian Government and Oceania Taekwondo in getting them out of Afghanistan,” said Heather Garriock, Australian Taekwondo’s CEO.
“The lives of these women were in danger. As a sport, we needed to pull together and do something to help. The Australian taekwondo community is incredibly welcoming, and these ladies will be welcomed with open arms.”
Garriock contacted former Socceroo and vocal humanitarian advocate Craig Foster to help in relocating the athletes to Australia.
“Craig is a passionate advocate for multiculturalism and refugees, so it was only natural that he was the first person I contacted to discuss what needed to happen.”
Requiring an immigration lawyer, Garriock approached John Kosifis, the President of Oceania Taekwondo, for further assistance.
“John is a lawyer and was able to provide us with support around the process we needed to follow.”
Athlete Fatima Ahmadi is excited to be in Australia and is grateful for the assistance of all parties who supported their evacuation.
“I feel so good about arriving in Australia. We are safe here without any danger,” said Ahmadi.
“Australian Taekwondo helped us a lot and I am so thankful. We are now waiting to do some useful things for Australia and repay your help.”
The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan last month with a regime that will forbid Afghan women from playing sport.
Seven of the eight ladies are currently in Australia. One of them remains in Kabul due to the violence that surrounds her.
“A visa to Australia has been secured for one more athlete, and we are working with the relevant agencies to get her safely to Australia,” Garriock added.
Australian Taekwondo hopes the wider community will support the group as they establish themselves in Victoria.
Paine: Players could boycott T20 World Cup
- Russell Gould and Robert Craddock
Test captain Tim Paine believes teams could refuse to play Afghanistan at the T20 World Cup if the International Cricket Council doesn’t stop them from playing in the tournament next month.
Paine said the Australian players were “fully supportive” of Cricket Australia’s stand against Afghanistan that is set to cost Tasmania a historic match between the nations.
On Thursday CA said it would have “no alternative” but to cancel the one-off Test in Hobart in November because of the Taliban’s hardline stance against women playing not just cricket but any sport.
To be a full member of the ICC, all nations must have an active women’s team. The Taliban has declared it will ban all women’s sport.
The ICC has resolved to discuss the issue at its next board meeting, which is during the World Cup in October.
But pressure is building on them to make a call on Afghanistan’s status before the tournament, and Paine said if they were allowed to compete, teams could boycott playing them.
“I think so. I think it will be something discussed team by team,” Paine said on Friday morning.
“It will literally be something teams will discuss on the eve of that World Cup.”
Afghanistan cricket has more issues too after captain Rashid Khan stood down after not being included in the selection process for the World Cup squad.
But Paine said the ICC needed to make a call on Afghanistan playing in the tournament before it started.
“It will be interesting to see what happens in that space, does a team just get kicked out of the World Cup?” he said on SEN.
“If teams are pulling out of playing against them and governments are not letting them travel to our shores, how a team like that can be allowed to play in an ICC-sanctioned event is going to be very hard.”
Paine conceded the Test in his home town of Hobart was doomed but said he and the players were right behind CA.
“Cricket Australia, the ACA (Australian Cricketers Association) and all players in Australia are hugely supportive of female cricket and trying to grow the game,” he said.
“And secondly around the world, making sure all people, male or female, have the chance to chase their dreams whether that’s in sport or whatever. We stand with Cricket Australia and the ACA on their strong stance.
“With what’s going on with the Taliban, they are banning women from playing any sport, that has implications at an ICC level and then secondly, from a female’s point of view, from a human rights point of view, to exclude half your population from being able to do something is not on and I don’t think we want to be associated with countries that are taking opportunities off literally half their population.
“It’s sad that it’s happening over there and from a cricket fan and a cricket person’s point of view, and a Tasmanian to have the match most likely now called off, is very disappointing.”
OPINION: CRICKET EXPOSES DESPERATELY SAD REALITY OF TALIBAN’S CONTROL
Australia has made a strong, swift statement to the Taliban about its shameful treatment of women’s cricketers but the game’s ruling body is yet again wobbling at the knees.
It is never easy being first to take a stand on anything but Cricket Australia did well to aim up when government and cricket officials were looking nervously at each other wondering who would pull the trigger.
Such was the strength of CA’s view they didn’t even have a board meeting.
CEO Nick Hockley rang around and the opinion was united and clear.
Tell the Taliban if you won’t support the women’s game we won’t support your country.
With that, the first Test between Australia and Afghanistan was effectively dead and buried just 16 hours after a news report surfaced featuring a Taliban spokesman saying women would be banned from playing cricket amid fears their faces and bodies may be exposed during match play.
The big question now is what happens next? Will others follow? Will the ICC be strong enough to throw Afghanistan out of next month’s T20 World Cup and Test cricket altogether?
In its time-honoured way of moving with the speed of a beached whale and spelling out the blindingly obvious, the International Cricket Council released a statement saying it was concerned by reports women will no longer be allowed to play cricket in Afghanistan and the matter will be discussed at its next meeting.
But here’s the issue. That meeting is not until halfway through the World Cup. And once a team starts a World Cup it is entitled to finish it.
So it looks as if Afghanistan will play the T20 World Cup even though it shouldn’t. If common sense prevails, Afghanistan will be banned from Test cricket until it reignites its women’s program, an essential qualification for being a Test nation.
Australia is set to play Afghanistan in a warm-up match before the Cup and that game is also likely to go ahead.
Australia accepts the deep and desperately sad ramifications of the decision to abandon the Test against a battling nation who have never played an international game in their war-threatened homeland.
The rise of Afghanistan, with many of its players raised in refugee camps across the Pakistan border, is the most romantic cricket story of the 21st century.
Leg-spinner Rashid Khan, a Test captain at 20 and one of the game’s most charismatic figures, was recently branded by The Australian’s Gideon Haigh as the most important cricketer in the world.
Though cricket was first played in Afghanistan by British troops in 1939 it has only truly flourished in recent decades and the Afghanistan Cricket Board only came into existence in 1995.
Players in training camps in Kabul went about their work with gunships flying overhead. Some players travelled eight hours just to get training.
Australia has treated emerging nations with embarrassing disdain over the years but this was a decision which had to be made.
Cricket and sport in general has come so far in its celebration of women that anything other than swift action would have suddenly made those advances seem invisible
TALIBAN’S HORRIFIC FEMALE SPORTS BAN COULD KILL TEST
By Robert Craddock and Peter Lalor
CA’s bold response to Taliban’s ban on women
The first Test match of the summer is certain to be cancelled with Cricket Australia saying it will not host the Afghanistan men’s team if the Taliban outlaws women’s cricket.
“Driving the growth of women’s cricket globally is incredibly important to Cricket Australia,” the organisation said in a statement.
“Our vision for cricket is that it is a sport for all and we support the game unequivocally at every level.
“If recent media report that women’s cricket will not be supported in Afghanistan are substantiated, Cricket Australia would have no alternative but to not host Afghanistan for the proposed Test match due to be played in Hobart.”
An update on the proposed Test match against Afghanistan â¬‡ï¸ pic.twitter.com/p2q5LOJMlw
— Cricket Australia (@CricketAus) September 9, 2021
The announcement comes as the Tasmanian government consulted refugee groups who fled the murderous regime about hosting the November Test match.
The federal government has also indicated a reluctance to support the event if women were banned, as a Taliban spokesman indicated to SBS on Thursday.
Most of Australia’s senior players would have struggled to be ready for the game given the quarantine impositions faced on return from the T20 World Cup.
âœï¸ Statement on proposed Afghanistan Test. pic.twitter.com/z5dWNn7zxb
— Australian Cricketers' Association (@ACA_Players) September 9, 2021
Australian Cricketers’ Association released a statement on Thursday backing the CA stance to abandon the men’s Test match with Afghanistan due to the Taliban’s decision to ban women playing cricket.
“The ACA unequivocally endorses Cricket Australia’s statement on the upcoming Test match against Afghanistan,” ACA said in a statement.
“What is happening now in Afghanistan is a human rights issue that transcends the game of cricket.
“And while we would love to see players such as Rashid Khan play against Australia, hosting this Test match cannot be considered if that same opportunity to play the game is denied to Roya Samim and her teammates.”
Originally published as Australian Taekwondo relocates seven female athletes to Melbourne after rescue mission
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