Death threats after Miss Iraq’s ‘peace’ selfie with Miss Israel force family to flee

As selfies go, this one of two beauty queens was picture-perfect: Miss Iraq and Miss Israel, posing together before the Miss Universe pageant last month.

Miss Iraq, Sarah Idan, a 27-year-old aspiring singer/songwriter, was ecstatic to be at the pageant, the first woman in 45 years to represent her country in the contest, according to CNN. She has dual Iraqi-U.S. citizenship and lives in Los Angeles.

She posted several selfies with other contestants at the pageant, but none drew attention like the one with Miss Israel.

“I said, ‘Let’s take a picture so our people can see we don’t have a problem and we’re actually ambassadors for peace,’” she told Miss Israel, Adar Gandelsman.

She captioned the photo: “Peace and Love from Miss Iraq and Miss Israel.”

The reaction has been anything but peaceful. People threatened her life because of the selfie, and because she wore a bikini in the preliminary competitions. She has said she was forced to wear a more modest swimsuit in the televised competition.

The controversy quieted down until last week, when apparently Gandelsman told Israeli media that Idan’s family had to flee Iraq. The Jerusalem Post reported the family left the country because they, too, were threatened because of the selfie.

Gandelsman told the Post she and Idan have stayed in touch since the pageant and that Idan doesn’t regret posting the photo.

“She did it to so that people can understand that it’s possible to live together,” Gandelsman told the Post. “In order for people to see that we can connect, in the end we are both human beings.”

Idan told CNN she did not expect “for a second” that there would be such blowback.

“I woke up to calls from my family and the Miss Iraq Organization going insane,” she told CNN. “The death threats I got online were so scary.”

The director of the Miss Iraq Organization, she says, threatened to strip her title if she didn’t remove the photo from her Instagram, though the organization denied to CNN that it did that.

According to the Post, she defended the photo in an Instagram post written in Arabic.

“I want to stress that the purpose of the picture was only to express hope and desire for peace between the two countries,” she wrote.

She added that the photo did not signal support for Israel and apologized if anyone took the photo as an attack on the Palestinian cause, according to the Post.

“My mom was freaking out,” she told CNN. “I told her ‘Mom, just get out. Get out.’ I told her I’m sorry and asked if she wants me to leave the competition.”

She didn’t drop out and didn’t place in the pageant.

Idan would not talk to the media about the photo so that her parents and other family members could get out of the country quietly, CNN reports. A U.S. State Department official would not confirm or comment on reports to CNN that Idan’s family fled Iraq.

More than a month after she posted the selfie, Idan is still getting death threats on social media. She has not removed the picture from her Instagram.

This story was originally published December 18, 2017 at 9:46 AM with the headline "Death threats after Miss Iraq’s ‘peace’ selfie with Miss Israel force family to flee."