Afghan protestors gathered outside Parliament on Thursday evening to oppose calls from UK politicians for an cricket boycott.
An open letter was sent by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) on 6 January, urging them to speak out against the Taliban’s sex apartheid and withdraw from the Champions Trophy group-stage fixture against Afghanistan in Lahore on 26 February.
Those protesting were British Afghans now living in London, some having fled the Taliban and oppose the regime’s restrictions against women in the strongest possible terms, but who also argue a boycott would do little to help this issue.
Protestor, Hamid Sahil, said: “We came here to raise our voice and to tell the international community that, while we don’t agree with the politics of the country, sports has nothing to do with politics.
“Sport is the only joy that people have got left back in the country.”
Sahil continued by highlighting the importance of sport for young people in Afghanistan, and the challenge that boycotts would create for young men who have built their life around the sport.
Another protestor, the leader of a charity which supports refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in the UK, argued a boycott, while attempting to show solidarity with Afghan people, would only add to their oppression.
Afghan Association Paiwand CEO Fahima Zaheen said: “We are targeted by both sides, those who claim to advocate for us and those who oppress us.
“The politicians ban the cricket team to make a point, but who really pays for it?
“We, as people who like Afghan cricket, were really looking forward to this match.
“I love to watch them creating that happiness amongst people, the only happiness at the moment.”
The letter was signed by a cross-party group of over 150, including Nigel Farage, Jeremy Corbyn and Lord Kinnock.
It raises concerns over what it described as an insidious dystopia unfolding in Afghanistan, which has seen an escalating assault on women’s human rights and freedoms since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021
Women have been banned from schools, universities and most forms of employment, denied healthcare and access to public spaces as well as seeing more basic rights to travel alone, dance, sing or drive also stripped.
The letter states: “Their faces are banned from view, their voices from being heard, even in prayer.
“Most recently, the Taliban have banned windows through which women might be glimpsed in their domestic spaces.”
The Taliban regime has posed questions for cricket since 2021 when women were banned from all sport as one of its first acts.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) demands that all its full members fund and support a women’s national team, leaving Afghanistan in direct contravention of their rules.
Ms Zaheen said: “Why now?
“Why not when we warned everyone of the outcomes when the Taliban were given a platform in Doha?
“Why not when the ICC let the Afghan women’s cricket team down?”
The ECB quickly responded to the letter, advocating for collective action by the ICC instead of an individual boycott.
Culture secretary Lisa Nandy also told the BBC on Friday that it should not go ahead.
She said: “I’m instinctively very cautious about boycotts in sports, partly because I think they’re counterproductive.
“I think they deny sports fans the opportunity that they love, and they can also very much penalise the athletes and the sports people who work very, very hard to reach the top of their game, and then they’re denied the opportunities to compete.”
But damage appears to have been done nonetheless to the faith of British Afghans in the UK’s response to the Taliban regime.
Zaheen stated: “The debate about boycotting Afghanistan’s cricket team fails to grasp the multi-dimensional elements that fuel protests against it.”
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