Loading ...Saudi Beauty Queen is Forced to Drop out of Miss Arab World Pageant after Intense Online Backlash from People in the Ultra-Conservative Kingdom
SOURCE: DAILY MAIL
BY: ANTHONY HARWOOD
A beauty queen from Saudi Arabia has been forced to pull out of the Miss Arab World contest after a barrage of online abuse from her own countrymen.
Miss Saudi Arabia Malak Youssef, announced she was dropping out hours before the crowning ceremony after an online backlash accusing her of misrepresenting her conservative Muslim country by taking part.
The 24-year-old has since hit back at internet trolls who wrecked her chances of the title, in a video viewed more than 250,00 times.
Miss Youssef said: ‘If the Saudi people knew me better then they wouldn’t have insulted me the way they did.’
‘You didn’t give me a chance to prove myself, you hurt me with your words and insults. Real beauty is on the inside. You didn’t judge me based on my personality and internal beauty, you only judged me on my external beauty.’
‘I was very happy for the Saudi people, I was saying how the Saudi people will all support me and say that I am the nation’s daughter. However, you mistreated me in a way that I swear to God does not please God nor anyone!’
Some Saudi social media users heaped scorn on Youssef for going against the country’s tradition and religious values.
‘We are ready to stand by your side but not when you are bringing shame to us and to the women of Saudi Arabia with your indecencies and your choice of entering a stupid competition like this one. God forgive my parents and yours,’ said one.
Another stormed: ‘She should be held accountable over this, along with the organization who gave her this title. How can they crown a beauty queen to represent the kingdom when no one in the country even knows anything about it?’
She was also targeted for vile personal abuse for taking part. ‘Every low life now represents us,’ said one on Twitter.
Youssef would have been only the second Saudi woman to participate in the Miss Arab World pageant, held in Morocco last weekend.
The last Saudi contestant won the title in 2009. Despite claims by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince that he wants to modernise and return to ‘moderate Islam’, women in the ultra-conservative country are expected to wear an abaya, a robe that covers their body, in public, and will only be allowed to drive next June.
Beauty pageants are almost unheard of in Saudi Arabia. In 2014, the female organisers of a four-day pageant in Mecca were investigated by the Commission for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue in Saudi Arabia, which banned the contest.
Youssef was nominated a by Saudi civil society organisation to participate in the pageant.
However, some commentators defended her decision to try for the crown. One said: ‘Beauty pageant aren’t only about physical appearance. There are other things jury members often take into consideration, like intellect and personality.
‘She was nominated because she deserves it; to bully her and make fund of how she looks is simply unacceptable.’
The beauty competition saw candidates from Algeria, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan.
