Afshan Azad plays Padma Patil in the “Harry Potter” movies. But she’s getting publicity right now for the wrong reason. She could’ve been a victim of an “honor killing.”
The 22-year-old actress’s father and brother have been charged with threatening to kill her, says the Daily Mail.
The altercation occurred at the family home in Manchester, England. In addition to threatening her, Afshan’s brother, 28-year-old Ashraf, is also accused of physically assaulting Afshan and “causing her bodily harm.”
…
According to People, Afshan’s Muslim family was angry about her relationship with a Hindu man…
Afshan is said to be staying with friends in London.
What!? Not Hindus! They believe in… well, the same kind of silly things that most religious people do. You say tomato, I say tomahto. But extremist beliefs in any faith can lead to disastrous consequences.
A spokesman for prosecutors said her brother Ashraf, 28, physically attacked her and both he and their father threatened to kill her…
They confronted her in her bedroom and left her “badly bruised” when she refused to stop seeing the man, the Daily Express said.
Check out how her brother Ashraf — the guy who attacked her — responded to all this:
… Ashraf told the Daily Telegraph that the family will suffer as a result of the scandal.
“We are going to get trouble from the community now,” he said. “It is bad news for our safety, her safety.”
“Her career could be ruined. When she goes to a premiere or something, they are going to ask her about this, not the film,” he added.
“My younger brother is going to get harassed at college,” Ashraf said. “All our family is going to be harassed by the community because of this.”
Right… it’s all her fault for dating the brown-guy-who-was-the-wrong-kind-of-brown-guy. Not his fault for physically attacking her.
David Hume at Secular Right tries to put this in perspective:
This is of course the culture of shame and honor. Afshan Azad’s brother seems more concerned about word getting out about her dalliance with a Hindu man, and how badly it will reflect upon their family in the eyes of other Bangladeshis, than the fact that he apparently beat up his sister. This makes sense in light of his culture, in many societies, including the Bangladeshi one, extreme physical abuse of inferiors by superiors is accepted as a normal part of life.
Obviously, no one wants a tragedy to happen. But if I may search for a small upside to this, it’s that it’s a high-profile case and more people will have their consciousness raised about how crazy these “faithful” people can be. Blame it on “culture” if you want, but it’s a culture based in Islam and that’s a major part of the problem.
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