HOLLYWOOD - Actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie was terrified to return to New York after receiving death threats for publicly supporting Afghan refugees following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The movie star had visited Afghanistan shortly before Osama bin Laden's attacks on America and spoke out after 9/11 urging Americans not to go to war with the country sheltering the Al Qaeda leader.
Jolie spoke about the Afghan people she had met during her trip to the Middle East--and how they were victims of the Taliban and Al Qaeda too, but America largely didn't want to listen, and some patriots launched attacks on the actress herself.
She recalls, "I went on a show a few days after 9/11... to say that we needed to be focused on the Afghan people, the refugee families. We were focused on the Taliban as an enemy, and these people were their victims too.
"I got a phone call and two letters that said, very aggressively, how dare I say that we should help anyone else after September 11: 'We should be helping everybody in New York and that's it. F**k you! I hope your family dies, you're anti-American.'
"I was so shocked that I was actually nervous the first time I went back to New York a few months later."
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Photo(s) by Adriana M. Barraza- © 2004- Hollywood Media Corp.- All Rights Reserved