Miss Canada Anastasia Lin is finally competing in the Miss World beauty pageant. She was Canada’s representative in 2015 but was denied a visa then. She instead went to Hong Kong and tried to get a connecting flight to Sanya, a seaside resort city on Hainan Island, China where the pageant was held.
However, authorities in Hong Kong, who are under China, stopped Lin from boarding the plane, so Lin – who was born and raised in China but migrated to Canada when she was 13 – watched the 65th Miss World Beauty pageant only on TV. Chinese authorities blocked her from entering China because she spoke against the country. Besides being a member of Falun Gong, the spiritual movement banned by Beijing authorities, Miss Canada has been vocal about her criticism of the Chinese government.
The Miss World organizers made it up to Lin by allowing her to represent Canada this 2016. But while the Miss World 2016 contest is being held in Washington DC, she is still being muzzled the second time. Miss Canada has been banned from talking to media and specifically instructed not to tackle human rights issue during the pageant, New York Times reported.
Despite being so far from China, the Miss World contest is still influenced by the Chinese government because the contest, even if based in London, has Chinese companies as major sponsors. It explains why the pageant has been held in Sanya six times since 2003. The muzzle goes beyond words but even what Miss Canada can and cannot do.
During the duration of the contest, Lin was not allowed to attend the U.S. premiere of the movie “The Bleeding Edge.” She is a cast of the film which deals with the illegal harvesting of body organs of dissidents through a program run by the Chinese government. Lin was also disallowed initially to meet with an official from the U.S. State Department, but the Miss World organization eventually allowed her on the condition that a representative of the pageant chaperone her.