AFP
The new “Miss Germany” stands up to cyberbullying
The new “Miss Germany”, Apameh Schönauer, is 39 years old, an architect and of Iranian origin. She is far from the usual modeling stereotypes. This has earned this woman committed to integration a campaign of cyberharassment. “I find it very sad,” she sighs in an interview in Berlin with AFP. “These messages are so superficial that there is nothing to say”, she laments, in reference to the multiple mockery and insults about her physique, her age or her origins. Since 2019, the “Miss Germany” competition has been reformed, a bit like “Miss Universe” even if the two are not linked. Now called “Miss Germany Awards”, the competition attaches less importance to the measurements, age, weight or hairstyle of the candidates, than to their personality, their values and above all their commitment to a societal cause. This is how Ms. Schönauer was awarded the crown at the end of February. “I participated in Miss Germany because I wanted to change things. I “I have a 2-year-old little girl and I felt that I wanted to take responsibility to be a role model for her,” she says. “And then, I have always been motivated by the strong Iranian women who come down in the streets every day and fight for their freedom. And these are the reasons that made me say that I too had to do something,” she said. A wave of protests harshly repressed by the Tehran regime broke out two years ago in Iran after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, arrested for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women. – ‘A little hope’ -Ms Schönauer, mother of two, has no intention of being intimidated . “I didn’t imagine that my appointment would cause such an outcry, but it shows me that my fight” in favor of gender equality and respect for difference “is more important than ever”, believes the one who arrived in Germany with her parents at the age of six. Alongside her work, she is the founder of the Shirzan network, which campaigns for women’s rights. The director of the competition, Max Klemmer, expressed his solidarity as soon as the hate messages appear, the jury is reassured and sure “of having chosen the right person”, he clarified on his Instagram account. While people of foreign origin are regularly shown. finger in Germany, in particular by the far right and the most right wing of the conservatives, for their presumed lack of desire to integrate into German society, his journey constitutes a positive example and an encouragement. “I went to school here, I passed my baccalaureate and I studied architecture,” she says. “I learned to impose myself in this very masculine environment, to fight and to make myself respected as a woman, and as an Iranian woman, therefore as an immigrant.” She says she receives a positive response from the Iranian community. “They are very proud that we are giving them a little of hope, of knowing that as an Iranian woman, we can do something in another country where we grew up and where we have lived for more than 30 years”, she testifies.cmo- ilp/ylf/ial/
