Anastasia is not Your Average Beauty Queen

While many young women who enter a beauty pageant choose a cause to support as a means to win the crown, Anastasia Lin saw the Miss World beauty pageant differently. She was already passionate about a cause. Through her work as an actress, Anastasia had learned stories from survivors of human rights atrocities in China, her native country—stories that shook her. Anastasia wanted to do more, to be a voice for those suffering there. The Miss World beauty pageant seemed like the ticket to advance her cause.

Anastasia gathered her courage and entered the competition in 2013. Her first attempt ended in failure, but with determination Anastasia entered again in 2015—this time winning the title of Miss World Canada 2015. She was celebrated in Canada as well as in her birthplace of China. The celebration quickly took a turn, however, when Chinese authorities realized what the beauty queen’s message to fans was.

Religious Freedom and the Abolition of Organ Harvesting

Anastasia Lin learned more about the persecution of Falun Gong while researching and interviewing persecution survivors for her acting roles, and wanted to speak out about it. Talking directly with women who'd been through unimaginable torture while maintaining dignity and hope, she felt a responsibility to speak out more fervently.

In this process, Anastasia learned that Falun Gong practitioners were not only being imprisoned and tortured in China, but there was growing evidence they were being killed en-masse to supply the lucrative organ transplantation business operated by the communist regime. Her platform was to bring attention to this little-known atrocity. Anastasia was tackling a more contentious issue than her fellow beauty queens, but she had no idea the controversy that would unfold as a result of her position.

Background about Falun Gong and Being Invited for Tea.

In the late 1990s, tens of millions of Chinese citizens practiced Falun Gong—a peaceful meditation practice of the Buddhist school rooted in the principles of truth, compassion, and tolerance. Initially, the government supported it as a way to improve health, but Falun Gong’s popularity and independence from state controls came to be viewed as a threat by the ruling communist party, particularly then-president Jiang Zemin. So in 1999, the party declared its intent to “eradicate” Falun Gong, and launched a sustained and systematic persecution that has since permeated every level of society.

In China today, despite many economic advances, the society remains tightly controlled by the communist regime. They will stop at nothing to shut down anything that is perceived to be a threat to its authority. One method of intimidation is for the secret police to "invite you to tea" and suggest you stop any action it doesn’t like. Soon after winning Miss World Canada, Ana’s father is invited for tea. He is told to silence his daughter or else.

Persona Non Grata

Anastasia is declared a "persona non grata" by China, the highest form of diplomatic punishment, which bars a person from entering a country. As the Miss World 2015 competition finals are moved from Australia to Sanya, China, the beauty queen faces a difficult decision—does she continue to speak, putting her family and her own life at risk or does she fall silent, giving up her cause of speaking out about human rights atrocities in China?

Watch Badass Beauty Queen to see what Anastasia Lin chooses.