'I Don't Represent a Threat of Any Kind'
2015-11-12
http://www.rfa.org/english/women/china-missworld-11122015104012.htmlMiss Canada Anastasia Lin testifies on China's human rights situation at a US Congressional hearing, July 23, 2015.
When China hosts the 65th Miss World beauty contest starting on Nov. 21 on the island province of Hainan, one of the contestants will likely be missing from the line-up. Anastasia Lin, currently Miss Canada, has apparently been denied a visa by the ruling Chinese Communist Party after she spoke out publicly about the persecution of fellow members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, which Beijing has designated an "evil cult." Lin, who was born in China but is now a Canadian citizen, and whose China-based father has been visited by the state security police, told RFA's Cantonese Service that her visa application has stalled:
They need a letter of invitation if you are applying for a visa, and Miss World issued one from their London headquarters. But when I went to apply for the visa they told me that this didn't count, and that I had to get an invitation letter from inside China, from the event's organizers there.
I asked Miss World to request this from China for me, because I wasn't the only person having this problem; they all were. I was just the first person to ask them. But all of the other contestants have now received their invitation letters from China. They got them on Oct. 30. Now it's Nov. 10, and I haven't heard anything at all from them.
I was looking at photos of the letters that the other contestants sent to me, and it says that the issuing department is the Sanya Municipal Foreign Affairs Bureau, so it's definitely the government's doing.
What this means is that the Chinese government hasn't issued me an invitation.
There are still 10 days to go, so we haven't given up hope yet. Miss World understands that I did a few things with the intention of helping some people out. I hope they will understand that was the whole reason I took part in this contest in the first place. Maybe they'll move the contest if the Chinese government doesn't give me a visa.
I am 25 years old, and I just graduated from college. I don't represent a threat of any kind to them. I just wanted to speak out on behalf of some Chinese people. I think that it would show the world how international they've become if they allowed me to go.
video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH8dEwLn0JsCECC Testimony and Q&A - Miss World Canada 2015