Free Republic

The sole female Iranian Olympic medalist has defected. Kimia Alizadeh bid farewell and has relocated to Europe. It is reported she has gone to the Netherlands. The bronze medalist in Taekwondo posted her letter of farewell on Instagram just one day after the Iranian government admitted it shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet. She wrote in Farsi. “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.”“They took...

Concern mounted Thursday in Iran over the fate of the Islamic republic’s only woman to have won an Olympic medal, who is believed to want to settle in The Netherlands. Kimia Alizadeh clinched a taekwondo bronze medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016, drawing praise from her compatriots including the country’s President Hassan Rouhani and even conservatives in the Islamic Republic. In keeping with Iran’s strict Muslim custom, Alizadeh, then 18, competed wearing a head scarf over her taekwondo uniform and protective gear. There were high hopes she would compete at the Tokyo Olympics later this year and bring home...

Kimia Alizadeh, the sole woman to ever have won a medal at the Olympics for the country of Iran, has defected from the country and moved to Europe, she announced on social media. The 21-year-old, who won bronze at the 2016 summer Olympics in Rio in the women's Taekwondo 57-kg competition, wrote on Instagram Saturday that she is "one of the millions of oppressed woman in Iran." "They took me wherever they wanted. Whatever they said I wore. Every sentence they ordered I repeated," Alizadeh said. "Whenever they saw fit, they confiscated me. They put my medals on the obligatory...