Iranian beauty queen applies for asylum in Philippines, fearing execution for political beliefs if extradited
- Bahareh Zare Bahari has spent nearly a week at Ninoy Aquino Airport after learning that her home country put out an alert for her extradition
- Philippine officials say Iran wants her sent back to face assault charges, but she claims the allegations are false and she will be executed if she is returned
By Ashley Collman
Officials in the Philippines said Iran wants Bahari sent back to them to face assault charges. Bahari said the allegations are false and she will be executed if she is returned.
She is currently waiting at the airport while the Philippines reviews her asylum application.
Bahareh Zare Bahari represented her country in the 2018 Miss Intercontinental pageant in Manila. She told UK newspaper The Telegraph that the allegations against her are a “big lie”, and just an attempt to get her sent back to Iran so that she can be executed for her political beliefs.
Bahari took a stance against Iran’s Islamic Republic at the pageant last year, when she held up a poster of Reza Pahlavi, the exiled crown prince of Iran’s now-defunct royal family. Pahlavi’s father, the last king of Iran, was ousted during the Iranian Revolution in 1979, and replaced by a conservative Islamic theocracy.