Afghanistan's first female fixed-wing pilot has requested asylum in the United States, the Afghan defence ministry confirmed on Monday Dec 26,2016
Captain Niloofar Rahmani made the request after receiving death threats.
Captain Niloofar Rahmani(25) was scheduled to return to Afghanistan last week after a 15-month-long training course with the Air Force. But on the eve of her departure Rahmani declared that she did not want to return home, citing fears for her safety after she and her family received multiple death threats from hard-line Afghan insurgents.
The move triggered a storm of criticism that she was "betraying" her country."What she said in the US was irresponsible and unexpected. She was meant to be a role model for other young Afghans," defence ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanesh told AFP on Monday. "She has betrayed her country. It is a shame."
But her shock announcement also garnered her support from activists in Afghanistan, as well as renewed the debate on some of the country's most vexing issues: security, the role of women and the mass exodus of educated young people that has created an Afghan “brain drain”.
Rahmani became a symbol of hope for millions of Afghan women in 2013 when she appeared in the press dressed in her khaki overalls and aviator glasses after becoming Afghanistan's first female pilot since before the Taliban era.
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