Canada’s contestant in the Miss World pageant may be banned from visiting China, where the event will be held, because of her long history of criticizing China’s appalling record on human rights.
Anastasia Lin is a Chinese-born beauty queen, who now lives in Canada. She is a supporter of the banned spiritual-practice group, Falun Gong.
AP reports that her visa to visit China seems to have been denied, although no formal notification has been given.
‘The Communist country appears to have singled Lin out among the contestants and is stalling over her visa application,’ the report says.
The CEO of Miss World Canada, Ike Lalji, said he had assured officials that Lin ‘would focus on the competition.’
“She’s not going to do anything crazy over there that’s going to upset the government of China,” he said. “Our whole approach is to do it peacefully. If anything is going to happen, it’s going to happen in a very civilized way.”
For her part, Lin, 25, seems happy to rock the boat, saying that if she’s allowed to go ‘she’ll continue to speak out for Falun Gong’.
“I’m in the Miss World contest. I’m not going to do anything irrational, that’s non-peaceful,” she said, but “I am going to speak my mind, that’s for sure.”
