Date 7 December 2002 Broadcaster E!, Channel 5 | Entrants 88 | |
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Venue Alexandra Palace, London, UK | ||
Miss World 2002, the 52nd edition of the Miss World pageant, was held on 7 December 2002 at the Alexandra Palace in London, UK. It was initially intended to be staged in Abuja, Nigeria, but due to religious riots in the nearby city of Kaduna the pageant was relocated to London.
Contents
- Contestants
- Withdrawals during the contest
- Withdrawals but later re incorporated into the contest after moved to London
- Boycotting due Amina Lawal case
- Invited but never confirmed
- Replacements
- Historical significance
- References
A total of 110 contestants from all over the world were initially invited to compete for the crown, but several contestants boycotted the pageant in protest for the death sentence by stoning determined by an Islamic Sharia court to Amina Lawal, a Nigerian woman accused of adultery, making a total of 88 girls competing for the crown. It was the first time that audience participation through text messaging together with the scores of the judges helped in determining the results for the Top 20. Azra Akın from Turkey won the pageant, becoming the first ever representative from her country to be crowned Miss World. She was crowned by Agbani Darego of Nigeria. Show organizers stated that the event had a global viewership of over 2 billion people, and that it was broadcast in 137 countries.
Contestants
88 contestants participated in Miss World 2002.
Withdrawals during the contest
Withdrawals, but later re-incorporated into the contest after moved to London
Boycotting due Amina Lawal case
Also boycotting but never invited:
Invited but never confirmed
Replacements
Historical significance
In the year leading up the finals in Nigeria, several European title holders lobbied their governments and the EU parliament to support Amina's cause. A number of contestants followed the lead of Kathrine Sørland of Norway in boycotting the contest (despite the controversy Sørland went on to become a semi-finalist in both the Miss World and Miss Universe contest), while others such as Costa Rica were instructed by their national governments and parliaments not to attend the contest. Among the other boycotting nations were Denmark, Spain, Switzerland, Panama, Belgium and Kenya. There was further controversy over the possibly suspended participation of France and South Africa, which may or may not have been due to the boycott. For her part, Lawal asked that contestants not suspend their participation in the contest, saying that it was for the good of her country and that they could, as the representative of Sweden had earlier remarked, make a much stronger case for her on the ground in Nigeria.
Despite the increasing international profile the boycott was garnering in the world press, the contest went ahead in Nigeria after being rescheduled to avoid taking place during Ramadan, with many prominent nations sending delegates. Osmel Sousa of Venezuela, one of the world's most influential national directors, famously said "there is no question about it (the participation of Miss Venezuela in the contest)." The trouble did not end there, however. A Thisday (Lagos, Nigeria) newspaper editorial suggesting that Muhammad would probably have chosen one of his wives from among the contestants had he been alive to see it, resulted in inter-religious riots that started on 22 November in which over 200 people were killed in the city of Kaduna, along with many houses of worship being burned by religious zealots. Because of these "Miss World riots", the 2002 pageant was moved to London, following widely circulated reports that the representatives of Canada and Korea had withdrawn from the contest and returned to their respective countries out of safety concerns. A fatwa urging the beheading of the woman who wrote the offending words, Isioma Daniel, was issued in Nigeria, but was declared null and void by the relevant Saudi Arabian authorities. Upon the pageant's return to England, many of the boycotting contestants chose to attend, including Miss Norway, Kathrine Sørland, who was ironically tipped in the last few days as the number one favourite for the crown she had previously boycotted.