Sanam Maher is a journalist based in Karachi, Pakistan. For more than a decade, she has covered stories on Pakistan's art and culture, business, politics, religious minorities and women. A Woman Like Her: The Story Behind the Honor Killing of a Social Media Star is her first book.From the transcript of Maher's interview with NPR's Renee Montagne:
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST: The story of Qandeel Baloch was a harrowing one that gripped her home country of Pakistan. She was a social media star, ambitious, beautiful and daring. Her posts were often sexy - or for many in Pakistan, scandalous. That included her own large family, though they welcomed the money she sent home. Yet all that fame could not protect Qandeel from a tragic end. In 2016, one of her brothers murdered her in what's known as an honor killing. She was just 26. Journalist Sanam Maher is now out with a book on Qandeel's life and death. She joins us from Karachi. Welcome.--Marshal Zeringue
SANAM MAHER: Thank you for having me.
MONTAGNE: Tell us more about Qandeel and her social media persona, which could be quite risque in what is a socially conservative country.
MAHER: That's absolutely right. Qandeel was one of the first social media celebrities that we had in Pakistan. She became famous for the videos that she would post online to platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And the videos and the photographs, the selfies that she put up, they were a mixed bag - I mean, just sort of ordinary things. She bought a new dress. And she would put it on. And she'd ask, do I look sexy? She would make videos about her thoughts on everything from politicians to movies to her crushes on certain cricketers. So we liked to watch her. We liked to make fun of her. We liked to see how this young woman was just expressing herself. And she became famous for doing pretty much that - like, just entertaining us.
MONTAGNE: Though there were other people - women - online at the time, what was it about Qandeel? What was the thing that pushed her right to the top?
MAHER: We do have a lot more women that...[read on]