'Kite Runner' star threatened

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By Jason Motlagh

Zekeria Ebrahimi says getting cast as a lead in the film adaptation of the worldwide best-seller "The Kite Runner" changed his life, but not the way he expected.

Since the film premiered in November 2007, the Afghan boy, now 13, and his family have received a stream of death threats and other harassments that have compelled them to go into hiding abroad. They say the American film company Paramount Pictures is not doing enough to ensure their welfare.

"It's impossible to ever go back and live [in Afghanistan] because of this movie," said Waheeda Sultanzada, Zekeria's aunt and guardian, speaking from a location inside Pakistan that cannot be disclosed because of concerns about the family's protection. "And here, we live like prisoners at home."

The controversy stems from a scene in which a member of the Hazara minority is raped by a Pashtun boy. The scene stirred ethnic tensions in Afghanistan and resulted in street protests.

Thousands of Hazaras were killed when the predominantly Pashtun Taliban seized power in the mid-1990s. Though ethnic violence has declined since the Taliban's ouster, resentments linger. Afghan authorities have banned the film, but pirated copies are found readily at stalls across Kabul.

Based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini, "The Kite Runner" tells of a friendship between two boys that is torn by a violent act.

Early in the movie, Zekeria's character, Amir, asks his best friend, Hassan - the Hazara son of a house servant - to fetch a kite won in a kite-fighting contest. In a back alley, Hassan is trapped by a group of Pashtun boys and raped. Amir witnesses the assault but does nothing to stop it.

Although the film was shot in western China because of security concerns, director Marc Forster selected the children on a scouting trip to the Afghan capital to enhance its authenticity.

Miss Sultanzada said family members did not learn of the rape scene until midway through filming. Worried that it would offend conservative Afghans, they asked that the scene be cut. The filmmakers insisted that the shoot continue, she said, while making arrangements for Zekeria and his child co-stars to be relocated to the United Arab Emirates ahead of the movie's release.

In the United Arab Emirates, she said, they were constantly worried that they would be deported for expired visas on which Paramount failed get extensions. Miss Sultanzada said the monthly stipend and job she was given in Dubai were insufficient to support them, so they flew home to Kabul to be with family.