A former beauty queen claims she is the target of death threats after another pageant queen was murdered, according to a post on social media.
Former Miss Iraq Shimaa Qassem said during a live Instagram video Sunday that she received texts threatening her life, saying “you’re next.”
The haunting texts came after Tara Fares, former Miss Baghdad and runner-up for Miss Iraq, was gunned down by two motorcyclists while she was driving in Baghdad Thursday in the latest string of violence targeting secular women living in Iraq.
Qassem, 25, told her 2.7 million followers on Instagram that women in the country faced being “slaughtered like chickens” and called Fares a “martyr.”
Before 22-year-old Fares was killed, she dealt with insults from people on social media who suggested she lacked modesty because of her profession as a model, BBC reported.
Hanaa Edwar, founder of human rights group the Iraqi al-Amal Association, told AFP that “attacking women who are public figures is a bid to force them to shut themselves away at home.”