'Performing for Freedom' - Kabul, Afghanistan (48 images)

**TEXT AVAILABLE**

A detailed list and the biographies of all the women included in this story are available.

Please write to Alex Masi.


Introduction:

Rather than taking off their headscarf, for most Afghan women progress means being able to simply work, and preferably to do the job of their choice - in some cases, jobs that are considered "undignified" even today, in Hamid Karzai's Afghanistan.

Women have to...
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**TEXT AVAILABLE**

A detailed list and the biographies of all the women included in this story are available.

Please write to Alex Masi.


Introduction:

Rather than taking off their headscarf, for most Afghan women progress means being able to simply work, and preferably to do the job of their choice - in some cases, jobs that are considered "undignified" even today, in Hamid Karzai's Afghanistan.

Women have to be ready to pay the ultimate price if they want to pursue a career in the performing arts: they are faced with threats, stigma and often exclusion even by their own family members, who can go as far as repudiating them. To remind them of the risks they run are the violent deaths of colleagues such Shaima Rezayee, a 24-year-old presenter of a music show who was executed at her home in 2005 or Sanga Amadi, 22, a news presenter slain in Kabul in 2007.

Focusing on a range of women, TV, movie and theatre actresses, film directors, singers and presenters, each one with a peculiar attitude towards religion, politics and women's rights but all equally motivated to succeed and not to give up in front of any obstacle, no matter how big.

They include Hazara movie actress Agheleh Rezaie, whose husband, close to the Taliban, disappeared after the fall of their regime and is still missing; young singer Elaha Soroor, who was among the contestants in last year's edition of 'Afghan Star' (an Afghan version of 'American Idol') and is about to release an album with incendiary lyrics about civil rights; provocative former model and actress Leena Alam, who grew up in the USA but chose to resettle in Kabul a few years ago, and who now refuses to wear a scarf; and Somaya Rezaie, a young actress who decided to give up her acting career after being a victim of threats and feeling abandoned by the television station she was working for.
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