Fatal attraction

• Published in: Winnipeg free press
• Main Author: Brad Oswald / Watching TV
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Winnipeg, Man FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership 15.10.2015
• ISSN: 0828-1785

In 2008, having moved to the Middle East and reinvented herself as a journalist and aspiring filmmaker named Khadija Abdul Qahaar, she set out for the Taliban-controlled mountains of northern Pakistan with the intention of producing a first-person documentary on the subject of Taliban women. When her Taliban-connected protector began to question her motives and stated he was no longer willing to support her quest, [Beverley Giesbrecht] opted to continue. In the fall of 2008, she attempted to travel, without protection or permission, farther into the mountains, and was taken hostage and held prisoner for nearly two years. It's a difficult story to watch. Giesbrecht is not, in any way, portrayed in a sympathetic light -- as several friends and observers recall, she was driven as much by a misguided belief that her film would make her rich and famous as she was by her ideological and religious zeal -- but as one interview subject points out, she was also a Canadian citizen being held against her will in a dangerous region, and the federal government appears to have made little effort to secure her release.