ASSOCIATED PRESS IN BEIJING
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 26 November, 2015, 7:28pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 26 November, 2015, 9:30pm
Miss World Canada Anastasia Lin stopped in Hong Kong from reaching China. Photo: Nora Tam
A friend of Miss World Canada says the outspoken contestant has been barred from entering China to take part in this year's pageant in the southern island province of Hainan.
Caylan Ford said actress Anastasia Lin was prevented Thursday from boarding her connecting flight from Hong Kong. Authorities gave no reason.
Li is an outspoken critic of Chinese religious policy and a follower of the Falun Gong meditation sect, which was outlawed by China's ruling Communist Party as an “evil cult” in 1999.
She was not immediately available for comment. In a pre-departure statement she said denying her entry would mean China was trying to prevent her from speaking out about human rights issues.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1883886/outspoken-miss-world-canada-anastasia-lin-denied-entry
Miss World Canada stopped in HK from China trip
Anastasia Lin, a Toronto actress crowned Miss World Canada in May, was unable to obtain a visa in advance of her arrival for the contest finals this week in Sanya.
But 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.
She was not allowed to board a connecting flight to Sanya from Chek Lap Kok, according to a friend, Caylan Ford, who released a statement from Lin.
"The Chinese government has barred me from the competition for political reasons. They are trying to punish me for my beliefs and prevent me from speaking out about human rights issues," Lin said in the statement, prepared before her departure.
Lin testified at a US Congressional hearing on religious persecution on the mainland in July. In her testimony, she said she wanted to "speak for those in China that are beaten, burned and electrocuted for holding to their beliefs", according to the text of her statement on the Congressional-Executive Commission on China's website.
Lin, 25, said this month that her father had been harassed by mainland officials after she spoke out about human rights abuses. Asked about Lin's case, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said he had "no information to provide".
Officials at the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa said that Lin was not welcome in China, a Canadian newspaper reported on Wednesday. "China does not allow any persona non grata to come to China," Yundong Yang, an embassy spokesman, told the Globe and Mail. "I simply do not understand why some people pay special attention to this matter and have raised it repeatedly."
