The Short Life of Qandeel Baloch

Qandeel Baloch grew up in a conservative village in Pakistan called
Shah Sadar Din, a place where it was shocking to see a woman
swimming outdoors. She ran away from home, changed her name from
Fouzia Azeem, auditioned for Pakistan Idol, and eventually became
“Pakistan’s first social media star.” By 2015, she was reported to
be one of the 10 most Googled people in Pakistan. As she
became more famous, Qandeel Baloch also became more controversial.
She received intense criticism when she posed for photos with a
famous cleric named Mufti Abdul Qavi in his Karachi hotel room and
later tweeted that he had behaved inappropriately, in June 2016.
The next month, she was dead. Her brother, Waseem Azeem, confessed
to her murder. He said, “She was bringing disrepute to our family’s
honour and I could not tolerate it any further.” Because of a
loophole in Pakistan’s laws regarding honor killings, he believed
he would not be punished. Sanam Maher’s book is A Woman Like Her:
The Story Behind the Honor Killing of a Social Media Star. Say
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