Kimia Alizadeh, the only woman from Iran to medal in an Olympic Games, announced Saturday that she defected from the country, saying that she no longer wanted “to sit at the table of hypocrisy, lies, injustice and flattery.”
Alizadeh made the comments in an expansive Instagram post in which she denounced Tehran’s leadership and its impact on her life. She said that she was not invited to Europe, but that she must “accept the pain and hardship of homesickness” due to Iran’s “corruption and lies.”
Alizadeh earned a bronze medal in the taekwondo 57 kg weight class during the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. She also won a silver medal in the World Taekwondo Championships the following year.
“I am one of the millions of oppressed women in Iran who have been playing with me for years,” she said, according to an English translation. “They took me wherever they wanted. Whatever they said I wore. Every sentence they ordered I repeated. Whenever they saw fit, they exploited me. They put my medals on the obligatory veil and attributed it to their management and tact.”
She also accused the regime of exploiting her athletic prowess while also condemning her participation in taekwondo.
“The virtue of a woman is not to stretch her legs!” she recalled the regime saying.
Radio Free Europe noted that an Iranian state-run news outlet reported on Jan. 9 that Alizadeh had “emigrated to the Netherlands” and that it had engendered “shock” in the country. Alizadeh did not say where she move to in Europe in her Instagram post.
“My troubled spirit does not fit into your dirty economic channels and tight political lobbies. I have no other wish except for Taekwondo, security and a happy and healthy life,” she said, adding that she would “remain a daughter of Iran wherever I am.”
U.S. State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement that Alizadeh’s decision showed that she had “rejected the regime’s oppression of women.”
“Iran will continue to lose more strong women unless it learns to empower and support them,” she said.
Alizadeh’s decision comes as Iran faces increasing pressure from the U.S. and other Western nations. President Trump last week ordered additional sanctions on the country in response to a Tehran missile attack on Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops.
Protests erupted in the country on Saturday after Iran admitted that it accidentally shot down a Ukraine passenger plane carrying 176 people the same night as the attacks. The presidents of Ukraine and Canada have called for a transparent investigation into the matter. Among the victims of the crash were 11 Ukrainians and 57 Canadians.