Afghan filmstar in miserable French exile after death threats over veil

The feted star of an internationally-acclaimed film, Afghan actress Marina Golbahari and her husband Noorullah Azizi have been chased from their home to the brink of suicide in a filthy French asylum shelter after she was photographed without a veil. Fearful for their lives, the couple has kept a low profile since their arrival just over five months ago for a film festival.

“We never thought of staying,” said Azizi. “We hardly packed anything.” But death threats back home, they said, ruled out a return.

Golbahari was only 10 years old in late 2001 when she was plucked from the streets of Kabul and thrust to stardom as the heroine in the Golden Globe-winning film Osama.

She had been selling magazines on the streets of the capital and had witnessed the violence of the recently-toppled Taliban regime first hand when her father was beaten in front of her.

Osama was a hit and made Golbahari, now 24, an instant star in her country.

“Cinema is my life,” she told AFP. “In a film, I can say everything about my people.”

Her husband also found a way out of grinding poverty through Afghanistan’s burgeoning film industry.

He grew up in Pakistan among the millions of Afghan refugees who had fled the Soviet war of the 1980s.

Now 28, he recalls a childhood spent sleeping under a tent and working in a shoe factory, before returning to Kabul and trying his hand at a thousand and one jobs. He finally turned to acting, where his muscular physique and square jaw brought him roles as police officers and soldiers fighting the Taliban.“I was happy. I had everything,” he said.

Azizi and Golbahari met on Facebook and quickly fell in love, but the match was not welcomed by Azizi’s family who refused to attend the marriage in September 2015.

“They were ashamed of my wife because she is an actress and the whole world can see her photo,” he said.

It did not take long for more serious trouble to arise. A picture of Golbahari, head uncovered, at a festival in South Korea drew the ire of conservatives. The imam in her local village of Kapisa announced that she should not return, which Azizi said translates as: “She must die”. Soon after, a bomb was thrown into their garden in Kabul but failed to explode. Telephone threats started to pour in, and the couple were forced to move from house to house. In mid-November, they flew to Nantes in western France where Golbahari was appearing in a festival.

But their families, who had also received death threats, told them they had to stay away.

The couple have found themselves in a decrepit shelter for asylum seekers in Dreux, outside Paris. Their small green and violet room looks out over a roof full of discarded rubbish. Golbahari has struggled to cope with the forced exile, attempting suicide and now on anti-depressants. “I dreamed of living in France, but not like this,” she said.