TORONTO (AP) – Anastasia Lin is an actress who believes her outspoken advocacy of human rights in her native China played a big role in her winning bid in May to become Canada’s contestant in the Miss World pageant.
But then the host country for the global beauty pageant was changed from Australia to China, and now the communist country appears to have singled Lin out among the contestants and is stalling over her visa application. As a result, it’s unclear whether Canada will be represented at all in the pageant on Dec. 19 in Sanya, China.
Ike Lalji, the chief executive of Miss World Canada, said he assured officials at the pageant’s London headquarters that Lin would focus on the competition and not go out of her way to draw attention to her involvement in Falun Gong, a spiritual group outlawed in China.
“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.”
But Lin, 25, said that if she’s allowed to go she’ll continue to speak out for Falun Gong.