'Kite Runner' banned in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - January 16, 2008 The Afghan government banned the film more than a month ago
because of a rape scene of a young boy and the ethnic tensions that
the film highlights, said Din Mohammad Rashed Mubarez, the deputy
minister of the Ministry of Information and Culture. Shops selling
the movie would be closed, he said.
"It showed the ethnic groups of Afghanistan in a bad light,"
Mubarez said. "We respect freedom of speech, we support freedom of
speech, but unfortunately we have difficulties in Afghan society,
and if this film is shown in the cinemas, it is humiliating for one
of our ethnic groups."
"The Kite Runner" is based on the 2003 best-selling novel by
Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini. In the story, the main
character witnesses the rape of his ethnic Hazara friend by an
ethnic Pashtun. The two groups fought bitterly during the country's
1990s civil war.
Ethnic violence has not been a problem recently, but many
Afghans fear any hairpin trigger that could reawaken the
infighting.
Paramount Vantage, which released the film, flew four boy actors
in the movie out of Afghanistan last month over fears they could be
ostracized or subjected to violence. Though the movie was never
scheduled for release in Afghanistan, officials worried that
pirated DVDs could reach Kabul and some residents might react
violently.
Pirated DVDs are a booming business in Afghanistan, and
high-quality DVDs of new releases are frequently available the same
week the movies are released in theaters in the United States.
"The Kite Runner" does not appear to be for sale in most
Afghan DVD shops, but one DVD seller who asked not to be identified
for fear of government retribution told The Associated Press he was
selling the movie at Camp Eggers, a U.S. military base in Kabul
that hosts an outdoor market every Friday.
The shop owner said government authorities had visited his shop
and threatened to throw him in jail if he sold the film. However,
he said he still sells it inside the closed walls of the military
base.
"I'm selling it inside the camps," the seller said. "We don't
sell it outside. We're scared."
A soldier at another U.S. base in Kabul, Camp Phoenix, told the
AP this week he had bought the movie there.
Lt. Col. David Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman at Camp
Eggers, said, "We're not aware that this movie has been prohibited
in Afghanistan and we'll look into this."