The Taekwondo player “Kimia Alizadeh” and parents in Germany

I wore whatever they said. Every sentence they ordered me to say, I repeated. Whenever they saw fit, they exploited me,” she wrote, adding that credit always went to those in charge. She wrote further that she “didn’t want to sit at the table of hypocrisy, lies, injustice and flattery” any longer, nor remain complicit with the regime’s “corruption and lies.” Abdolkarim Hosseinzadeh, a member of parliament, accused “incompetent officials” of allowing “human capital to flee”. In the months prior to her defection a number of top sports figures had decided to stop representing — or to physically leave.

April 9, 2022 | 5:37 pm