A Miss World 2015 hopeful from Canada has been barred from entering China to participate in the pageant.
Anastasia Lin
A Chinese-born Canadian model says she was barred from entering China to participate in the Miss World pageant.
According to Reuters, the model, Anastasia Lin, an outspoken critic of China’s religious policy, said on Friday she was unable to board her connecting flight from Hong Kong after a Chinese official told her by telephone she would not be granted a visa on arrival.
25-year-old Lin, who is also a Toronto actress was crowned Miss World Canada in May, but was unable to obtain a visa in advance of her arrival for the contest finals this week in Sanya, on the southern Chinese resort island of Hainan.
However she said she attempted to enter the country anyway based on a rule that allows Canadian citizens to obtain a landing visa upon arrival in Sanya.
Speaking with The Associated Press, she said: “If they start to censor beauty pageants – how pathetic is that?”
In a pre-departure statement, Lin said denying her entry would mean China was trying to prevent her from speaking out about human rights issues.
This is becuase Lin, who moved to Canada when she was 13, is an outspoken critic of Chinese religious policy, and a follower of the Falun Gong meditation group. Dubbed a cult, Falun Gong was outlawed by China’s ruling Communist Party in 1999.
Lin said after she won the Canadian beauty title, Chinese security agents visited her father – who still lives in China – in an apparent attempt to intimidate her into silence.