National Geographic 'Afghan girl' arrested in Pakistan

[rug]

US photographer Steve McCurry poses next to his photos of the "Afghan Girl" named Sharbat Gula at a 2013 exhibition in Hamburg, northern Germany


26 OCT 2016

An Afghan woman immortalised on a celebrated National Geographic magazine cover as a green-eyed 12-year-old girl was arrested Wednesday for living in Pakistan on fraudulent identity papers.

The haunting image of Sharbat Gula, taken in a Pakistan refugee camp by photographer Steve McCurry in the 1980s, became the most famous cover image in the magazine's history.

She now faces up to 14 years in jail -- in an episode which highlights the desperate measures many Afghans are willing to take to avoid returning to their war-torn homeland as Pakistan cracks down on undocumented foreigners.

Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested Gul for fraud following a two-year investigation in the northwestern city of Peshawar, the capital of restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan.

https://www.afp.com/en/news/205/national-geographic-afghan-girl-arrested-pakistan

[MADem]

1. PAGE NOT FOUND. I guess they've shifted it or something.

Daily Mail seems to have lifted the story and re-issued it:


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-3874972/National-Geographic-Afghan-girl-arrested-Pakistan.html

..."FIA arrested Sharbat Gula, an Afghan woman, for obtaining a fake ID card," Shahid Ilyas, an official of the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA), told AFP.

Ilyas said the authorities were also seeking three NADRA officials found responsible for issuing Pakistan's national identity card to Gula, who have been at large since the fraud was uncovered.

He said that Gula faces seven to 14 years in prison and a fine of $3,000-$5,000 if convicted.

In reality she is unlikely to serve such a harsh sentence -- many Afghans who have been convicted in similar cases have been deported before they could be sent to prison.

Officials say Gula applied for a Pakistani identity card in Peshawar in April 2014, using the name Sharbat Bibi.

Thousands of Afghan refugees have managed to dodge Pakistan's computerised system to get an identity card.

The photo attached to her application featured the same piercing green eyes seen in McCurry's famous image, only older....

[rug]

2. That's odd. Thanks for locating it.

That picture of her in purple was taken decades later after the photographer set out to find what happened to her.

[MADem]

3. I remember the search and the story.

We have that National Geographic original magazine knocking around the house somewhere (never throw anything out, it seems).