Al-Ahram Weekly Online 13 - 19 December 2001 Issue No.564
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Current issue | Previous issue | Site map

No longer a killing field

(photo: Reuters)

NOW, with the Taliban gone, this football pitch in Kabul, Afghanistan, is being used for what it was originally made for.

This was where, just a few months ago, a thief may have had his hands or feet amputated. The goal posts could have been used to hang a criminal. Sometimes offenders were shot at close range on the edge of the penalty area. Stadium officials say dozens were executed and hundreds more punished on this soccer field by the Taliban.

\Football coach Zaidmahsiam Masari told reporters, "We have to get support for a sports programme, have resources to train our players and send our young people abroad to see how other sportsmen in the world play, because for five years my players were in the darkness."

Last week, the two top local soccer teams were watched by a large crowd as sports at last returned to the stadium

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