ISIS threat to Iraq’s first beauty queen in 30 years

Shaymaa Qasim Abdelrahman received the threat after she was made champion in Iraq's capital Baghdad on Saturday, according to media in Kuwait.

The 20-year-old, from Kirkuk, was said to have been left distressed by the phone call but insists threats will not stop her. 

According to the Jerusalem Post, which cited Kuwaiti daily al-Watan, the student was told to join the caliphate or face being kidnapped.

But fresh from winning the contest - the first to be held in Iraq in more than 40 years - the beauty queen said she was determined to 'continue forward despite any obstacles'.

Reuters said at least two young women had pulled out of the contest after receiving death threats.

And organisers dropped the swimsuit section of the competition and postponed the televised finale in an attempt to deflect some of the criticism.

But contestants backed by many ordinary Iraqis, remained determined to press ahead with an event they saw as marking a step towards normality in a society still deeply divided and traumatised 12 years after the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein. 

The first and last time Iraq participated in a major international beauty pageant was in 1972 when Wijdan Burhan al-Deen represented the country at the Miss Universe contest. 

Qasim told AFP after her victory: 'I'm very happy to see Iraq going forward. This event was huge and put a smile on the faces of the Iraqis.' 

We look forward to having a good ambassador for Iraq,' said Senan Kamel, the 2015 pageant's artistic director, who also organised Iraq's first fashion show in years last March.

'What we're hoping to accomplish is to make Iraq's voice heard, show that it is still alive, that its heart is still beating,' he said. 

Kamel had earlier said organisers had tried to tone down or adapt aspects of the contest out of respect for the taboos and sensibilities of a conservative Muslim country which frowns on the public display of women's bodies.

'We deliberately organised the competition according to standards appropriate to Iraqi society to prove to the world that Iraq is a civilised country with a civic soul and a spirit of life,' he said.

Swimsuits were replaced with a more conservative outfit, though a ban on Islamic headscarves remained, in keeping with the protocol of Western pageants. 

A pro-Shi'ite Muslim television channel warned in September that the event would corrupt public morals and 'create a base culture while our people face the danger of terrorism'.

It accused the organisers of being Freemasons, a loaded insult in the Middle East where the secretive, fraternal organisation is widely seen as pro-Zionist and hostile to Islam.

Beauty pageants have steadily lost their appeal in Western countries, where many see them as demeaning to women and as a throwback to a more sexist era, but in Iraq they can bring hopes for social change and greater openness.

Under Saddam Hussein's secular rule, nightclubs and alcohol were available and clerics had little say in public policy.

Since a U.S.-led invasion toppled him in 2003, liberals have been squeezed out as violence between the ascendant Shi'ite Muslim majority and minority Sunnis fragments the country along sectarian lines and fuels religious radicalism and intolerance.

A third of Iraq is now controlled by ISIS, the ultra-hardline Sunni Muslim militants who believe women must be fully covered or face harsh punishment, including death.

(dailymail.co.uk)