- My name's Anastasia Lin.
I am a Canadian actress.
I've taken on roles in film and television shows
that depict human rights abuses in China
and to prepare, I speak with those who have suffered
including Falun Gong practitioners.
These are not criminals, these are people who believe in
truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.
I wanted to speak for those in China
who are beaten, burned, electrocuted
for holding their beliefs.
People in prison who eat rotten food with blistered fingers
because they dare have conviction.
I campaigned for the title Ms. World Canada
on a human rights platform.
Recent events leave me worried for my family
who are still in China.
I had to choose between silence
and my hope for a better China.
And then I remembered
silence helps no one.
Silence feeds terror.
I think if every Chinese can speak up
and let the Chinese government know that,
when they do such things
they will have a cost.
So, yes, I am a beauty queen
and when the government of China
declared me persona non grata
I literally had to go check on Wikipedia what it meant.
It literally means an unwelcome person.
It's the highest level of diplomatic punishment.
So, you're probably wondering how this happened
so let me start from the beginning.
I was born in China, and when I lived there
I believed everything I was taught.
So, I was encouraged to pledge allegiance
to the ruling Communist Party.
Then I moved to Canada, and I was given the rarest gift
a chance to reconstruct my outlook on the world.
So, I learned that, I wanted to learn about
what was hidden from me
so I searched all the terms
that our schoolteachers told us to avoid.
I watched videos of the brutal 1989 suppression
of Democracy activists in Tiananmen Square.
I watched how the tanks drove over
the courageous Chinese youth
marching on Tiananmen Square
trying to better the nation's future.
And this is an event that has almost been erased
from Chinese people's mind.
Information about it is strictly censored.
I've also learned about the persecution of Falun Gong.
In the late 1990s, tens of millions
actually, according to Chinese Communists
official data is 17 million to 100 million Chinese people
were practicing Falun Gong.
That's one tenth of the Chinese population.
This is a peaceful meditation practice
rooted in the Buddhist school
and they believe in the principles of truthfulness
compassion, and tolerance.
They're just like yoga practitioners with a belief.
And it just offered an alternative
to Communist atheist dogma and promotion of money worship
and so initially, it was even supported by the government
as a way to improve health.
But unfortunately, Falun Gong's popularity
and its independence from state control
came to be viewed as a threat by the ruling party
challenging its absolute control
over the hearts and minds of Chinese citizens.
As anyone who's familiar with
Chinese modern history would know
the Party tolerates absolutely
no ideological challenge, however benign.
And so, in 1999, the Party declared
Falun Gong an evil cult, and intended to eradicate it.
It launched a systematic and sustained persecution
that permeates every level of society.
In a recent report Freedom House rolled out
hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners
have been imprisoned without trial
making them the largest group of
prisoners of conscience in China, if not the world.
And the Party has officially sanctioned
the use of torture and violence to force them
to renounce their beliefs
resulting in a huge number dying in custody.
A far-reaching campaign of propaganda and misinformation
has been used to vilify and dehumanize
Falun Gong practitioners
comparing them to vermin that must be exterminated.
What does that remind you of, not long ago?
After learning this, I realized
that I had been lied to all my life.
Under the influence of China's state-run
media and education system, I was made to feel
hate and contempt toward the people
who are my country's true heroes
the people who are willing to
risk their lives for principles.
Worse still, I was made to participate
in the indoctrination of others.
As a student leader, one of my roles
was to organize my classmates to watch
hatred propaganda videos.
The Party tries to make all Chinese people
complicit in these crimes.
Learning about that you have been deceived for so long
is a profound indignity.
That's why many Chinese people struggle
to learn the truth after they come out of China.
It is a profound embarrassment to know that
your entire belief system was based on a lie.
But once I came to understand this fact
I wanted to take action
I wanted to find ways to defy the system
of censorship and violence that the Party has constructed.
I wanted to stand up for the brave Chinese citizens
who have been threatened, jailed
and vilified for their principles
and I wanted to offer hope to those
whose dignity has been taken from them
like my father.
And so, eventually I chose acting
as the medium for this effort.
I look for roles that move me
and shed light on what is happening in China.
The films and television projects I worked on
depict things such as media censorship, corruptions
like those that led to shoddy school buildings
that crushed thousands of children in a Sichuan earthquake.
Some people believe that I have already damaged my career
by taking these roles.
Many Chinese actors who were offered
parts in these productions backed out
over fears of reprisal from the Chinese Communist Party.
In one of my films, I depicted a Falun Gong practitioner
who was imprisoned and tortured in a labor camp.
And because she refuses to renounce her beliefs
she was killed in custody and her organs sold for profit.
As harrowing as this might sound
this actually happened to thousands
of prisoners of conscience in China.
Consider this: China performs far in excess
of 10,000 organ transplants per year.
And even that number is political.
Yet, there was virtually no voluntary
organ donation system in China
before the year 2015.
In the United States, a median wait time for a liver in 2006
was 321 days, but in China, hospitals have been
aggressively recruiting transplant tourists
promising that waving a few tens of thousands of dollars
they could get a kidney, a lung, a liver
pancreas, or heart within a couple of weeks.
How are the Chinese government able to locate
live donors of the same blood type within a few hours
and able to take organs on demand?
The authorities say that the organs
come from mostly death row inmates
people who are convicted of capital crimes.
But there aren't nearly enough death row inmates in China
to supply the growth of the massive transplant industry
after the year 2000.
Noting this disparity, researchers conducted investigations
into the true source of the organs
and they concluded that tens of thousands of
innocent political prisoners
including Falun Gong practitioners
Uyghurs, Tibetans, house Christians
have been killed so their organs
could be harvested and sold.
Learning about these facts was deeply humbling
and fundamentally changed me.
I came to feel like my role
was to be their voices, and to speak for those
who were disenfranchised by state power, outcasted
attacked in their own society
due to the political decision of the ruling party.
So to broaden my platform, I decided to compete in
the Ms. World Competition, whose motto was
"Beauty with a purpose."
That turned out to be not so much truth in that.
To my greatest surprise, in Canada
I was crowned Ms. World in 2015.
Ms. World Canada.
My resolve and determination were immediately tested.
My father, who still lives in China
was threatened by state security agents.
They wanted him to pressure me
to give up my human rights concerns.
I nearly quit.
I really wanted to ask myself if it is worth
endangering my own family to speak up for people
who I didn't even know.
But I realized silence helps no one.
Silence feeds terror.
For speaking up for people who are jailed for their beliefs
and organ harvesting, I was declared persona non grata
and barred from competing in China
and they denounced me on China's state-run media
attacked my family, attacked me
banned my grandparents from coming out
banned my mother from going to China
so she might not see her parents again in her lifetime.
And my father was also banned from leaving China.
My experience is not unique.
All around the world, Chinese citizens continue to feel
the cold, iron arm of the Communist Party.
The Party has specialized agencies
to ensure that Chinese people like me living abroad
continue to adhere to the correct political views.
If people step out of line, we risk
endangering our families back in China.
And it's not just the Chinese people
who face this pressure.
As China has grown more confident and assertive
it has also become more brazen
in its human rights abuse internationally.
The recent extraterritorial abduction
of Hong Kong booksellers shows this.
So too do the televised forced confession
of foreign dissidents and NGO workers
which almost certainly was extracted
under threats of torture.
And this is to say nothing about
the Western journalists and academics
who risk being denied visas to China
if they report on sensitive topics.
News outlets that provide critical coverage
of the Party risk being barred from
China's market entirely.
Even Hollywood studios are facing
the same pressure to censor
and modify their scripts to placate Beijing
trading artistic integrity for market access.
So, how does this affect Africa?
This might seem like a problem a world away
but it's closer than you think.
When I stepped off of the plane in Johannesburg
a few days ago, the first thing I saw
was an advertisement in Chinese of the Bank of China.
China has been Africa's largest trading partner
since year 2000.
On top of this, the Chinese government has
given millions of dollars in aid
to dictatorships across Africa
effectively buying the support of these regimes
and enabling them to further oppress their own people.
China's even exporting their own surveillance systems
and censorship tools, which they have perfected
over decades of dictatorship.
But today I came here to tell you a message
that I believe in.
Dictators like China, like Russia
they look like a giant and indestructible.
But they're so fragile.
They're so weak inside.
Imagine the largest population on Earth
a country, took the trouble to denounce a beauty queen
who was 25 years old and denounce her
the highest level of diplomatic punishment.
How frightened and insecure she must be inside.
And that is why all these dictators are working together
to make themselves feel stronger
and that's why we are here today.
I want to end with a quote that I would like to share
with my fellow Oslo Freedom Forum speakers
the courageous staff, and all of you.
It's a quote that one of my friends
who's been recently denied from entering Hong Kong
he's British, has told me.
It's a mystic.
"Little light, drive away so much darkness.
But when light is joined to light
yours to mine, mine to others, dance of flame
each so small and intricately so beautiful
yet together, dance of flame
it will show that hope is no longer an illusion.
Evil, injustice, cruelty do not have the final word.
So, I hope you will join us today."
Take action.
Thank you.