'We have nothing now': Female taekwondo star banned from sport by Taliban

Anzorat Wali is a female Afghan taekwondo star who took up the sport to learn self defence. She swiftly began earning medals, more golds than she can remember, but her dream of competing in the Olympics died the day the Taliban arrived. 'We have nothing now. We have nothing,' she tells CTV National News' Paul Workman in Kabul.

And now to the story of Anzorat Wali.

The empty room is where she and her older sister Nilab practise taekwondo. Anzorat has a black belt, and a fistful of medals that jingle. She can’t remember exactly how many golds she’s won, but it’s a lot.

And it all stopped the day the Taliban arrived. The shattering of dreams. The end of freedom. A life that now feels hopeless, and she’s only 19.

“I don’t want something big,” she told me, in a soft voice and confident English, sometimes smiling, sometimes unbearably sad. “It’s our right to do something for ourselves, to fight for ourselves.”