ALI ZADA Masomah

General
FROM AFGHANISTAN TO FRANCE
Born in Afghanistan, her family moved to the Islamic Republic of Iran in about 1996 due to political unrest. The family returned to Afghanistan when Masomah was age 10, but she faced insults when she would go cycling and would have stones or fruit thrown at her. In 2016 she and her sister Zahra took part in a race in Albi, France, and were featured in a documentary named 'The Little Queens of Kabul'. A French lawyer took note of how difficult it was for the sisters to pursue cycling in Afghanistan, and helped them and their family to claim asylum in France. They were accepted in 2017 and moved to Lille. "In Afghanistan I couldn't cycle like in Iran - it was forbidden. I never saw a girl on a bike, let alone in sporty clothes. At the time not many girls cycled, and people were violent when they saw us. They thought it was against our culture, and our religion, but that's not true. It's just that it was weird for them to see a woman on a bike for the first time. I have never given up cycling. On the contrary, I want to encourage girls to do it, and to normalise women's cycling in Afghanistan." (actu.fr, 12 Jun 2021; infomigrants.net, 06 Jun 2021; marca.com, 11 Jan 2021)

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES
She has chosen to wear her veil while competing in cycling. "People do make comments about my veil. They ask me if I'm not too hot. You should never stop educating people. I live in Lille alone, my parents are in Orleans, and my father always told me that it was up to me to decide whether or not I wanted to wear the veil. That's something people don't understand." (actu.fr, 12 Jun 2021)