The party-state in Beijing is again revealing its totalitarian colors to the world through its conduct toward Canadian citizen Anastasia Lin.
Lin, 25, has for several years been a vocal critic of China’s government for its brutal persecution of spiritual minorities, most notably the Falun Gong, Christian, Tibetan Buddhist, and Uyghur Muslim communities.
Lin uses her media platforms as a multilingual part-time film actress and model to speak out on the issue of religious freedom generally. She earlier lobbied successfully, along with many others, for the creation of Canada’s new ambassador for religious freedom.
She is also studying a double major in international relations and acting at the University of Toronto. With more than 20 credits in film and television, many with messages of freedom and transparency, she was the female lead in “Beyond Destiny” (2010), which won Mexico’s Golden Palm Award and California’s Indie Fest Award of Merit.
A practitioner of Falun Gong—the exercise and meditation discipline China’s then Communist Party boss Jiang Zemin, banned in mid-1999—Lin was born in China’s Hunan Province and lived there before moving to Canada at age 13 with her mother. Her father today has a second family in China.
Within days of her winning last month over 52 other contestants in the Miss World Canada competition, Lin began receiving text messages from her father, saying she would lose his support if she continued speaking out about freedom of religion.
“He said,” added Lin, “ that the security services threatened him with turning my family into something from the Cultural Revolution,” referring to the violent period in the 1960s when Mao, seeking to destroy his political opponents under cover of social chaos, encouraged family members to denounce one other.
