Bikini contest nixed at Indonesia Miss World 2013 competition
This picture taken on December 31, 2012 shows models wearing bikinis posing for photographs at a ski resort in Jilin, northwest China’s Jilin province.
The traditonal bikini contest will be eliminated from the Miss World 2013 beauty pageant in Indonesia this year, after hard-line Muslims came out against the show, claiming that it would offend the tenents of their relgion.
"That contest is just an excuse to show women's body parts that should remain covered," said prominent cleric Mukri Aji to the Associated Press. "It's against Islamic teachings."
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Over 130 contestants are set to compete in the long-running international pageant, which has decided to substitute one-piece swimsuits and sarongs in a toned-down and not live filmed version of the typical bikini section.
The pageant will be held on the popular island destination of Bali and in Sentul, near Jakarta, beginning on September 28, wrote the Irrawaddy.
“It has been misunderstood by some people that Miss World is a beauty competition focusing on the physical attractiveness of a woman’s body,” said Indonesian media tycoon and pageant organizer Hary Tanoesoedibjo of the event, according to the New York Times.
“This is absolutely misleading,” he said, noting the pageant concerns “inner beauty, which includes intelligence, manners and achievement.”
“Indonesia is designing for us a very beautiful one-piece beachwear, and I’m very happy with them,” said Miss World organizer Julia Morley to the Associated Press.
“I don’t think Indonesia is the only country that has that culture,” Morley said. “But we like to work in the manner respectful to every country, and I cannot see why when you go to somebody’s country you should not behave respectfully.”