Iconic 'Afghan girl' from 'National Geographic' arrested in Pakistan

[mountaineer]

Iconic 'Afghan girl' from 'National Geographic' arrested in Pakistan
John Bacon , USA TODAY 10:37 a.m. EDT October 26, 2016

National Geographic's iconic, green-eyed 'Afghan Girl' was arrested Wednesday at her home in Peshawar, Pakistan, on charges she possessed a forged national identification card, authorities said.

Shahid Ilyas, an official of the Federal Investigation Agency's National Database Registration Authority, told AFP that Sharbat Gula was arrested following a two-year investigation and could face up to 14 years in prison.

Pakistan, and particularly the Peshawar area along the Afghan border, has been home to more than a million Afghans fleeing decades of war. Pakistan has been cracking down on fake national identification cards and has launched a verification program across the nation.

Gula was about 12 years old in 1984 when war photographer Steve McCurry shot her haunting photo, which appeared on the cover of the internationally renowned magazine's June 1985 edition. Gula's parents were killed in Russia's war with Afghanistan, and Gula had walked with her grandmother and four siblings across the mountains to Pakistan's Nasir Bagh refugee camp.

The photo became a symbol of the plight of refugees. ...   Rest of story at USAToday

[mountaineer]

More from Fusion:

... According to the International Business Times, Gula applied for an ID under the name “Sharbat Bibi” in 2014. Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reports that she and the two men claiming to be her sons were issued computerized national ID cards last year, however the issuing agency’s vigilance department later determined information on the application forms had been faked; According to one FIA official, Gula has two daughters and an infant son, and relatives living at the address given on her form would not corroborate that the two men who applied for their cards as her sons were, in fact, family members.

Dawn reports there are approximately 3 million Afghan refugees living in Pakistan, only half of whom are registered as such—a number seemingly corroborated by the United Nations Refugee Agency, which claims around 1.6 million Afghan refugees residing in that country.  ...

[LateForLunch]

Salmon Rushdie wrote a book titled "Midnight's Children" full of stories of life in that part of the world from the 1950s through roughly the 1980s - it's sort of like a cross between James Thurbur and Mark Twain set in Pakistan / India.  I obtained a lot of insight into how people from that part of the world may relate to each other and the world from reading that book. 

The almost universally desperate conditions of nations like Afghanistan, Pakistan and India promote all manner of corner-cutting and law-evading,. Not all of that skirting of law and order is malicious. Some of it is simply a matter of practicality and survival - where smart, moral people really have little choice but to seize opportunities when they arise, even if they are not wholly legal or moral.

Clevinger: But what about winning the war !?!

Yossarian: I don't care about the winning the war. All I care about is staying alive.

Clevinger: But what if everyone felt that way!?!

Yossarian: Then I'd be a damn fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I !?! (from Catch-22)