The speech of participants in the beauty pageant rarely makes headlines.
But then Han Lay, Miss. Grand Myanmar, speaking out last week against alleged atrocities committed by the country’s army, turned her speech upside down.
“Today in my country Myanmar … so many people are dying,” she said during the Miss Grand International 2020 event in Thailand. “Please help Myanmar. We need your urgent international assistance at this time.”
Just over a month ago, Han Lay, 22, was in the streets of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, protesting against the military.
The unrest in Myanmar began two months ago when the army took control of the country, undoing a democratic election in which the party of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won by a landslide victory .
When tens of thousands of people across the country took to the streets to protest the coup, the army used water cannon to disperse them. After a week, the reaction increased to rubber bullets and then live ammunition.
The deadliest day of the conflict took place last Saturday when more than 100 people were killed. A local monitoring group suggests the total death toll at more than 500. According to Save the Children, 43 of those killed were children.
Han Lay, a psychology student at Yangon University, decided to use the competition as a platform to talk about her homeland on an international stage.
“Journalists are being held in Myanmar … that’s why I decided to speak out,” she told the BBC in a telephone interview from Bangkok.
She is now worried that her two-minute speech could put her on the radar of the military. She said she decided to stay in Thailand for at least the next three months.
Han Lay said that before she left for Thailand, she knew that she would endanger herself and that she would have to stay there for a while.
“I am so worried about my family and my safety because I have spoken out a lot about the army and the situation in Myanmar. In Myanmar, everyone knows there are limits to what is happening,” she said.
“My friends told me not to return to Myanmar.”
Her fears are not unfounded. Security forces last week issued arrest warrants for 18 celebrities, social media influencers and two journalists under a law against material intended to bribe a member of the armed forces or disregard their duty, state media reported. Everyone spoke out against the coup.
Han Lay said she did not contact the military or any other officials after her speech, but she said she was on the receiving end of threatening comments on her social media accounts.
“On social media, they threatened me and said if I go back to Myanmar … the prison is waiting for me,” she said. She does not know who is behind the threatening remarks. The vast majority of comments on social media were supportive, she said.
Many of Han Lay’s fellow students with whom she protested in the first weeks after the coup were jailed, she said. According to the activist group of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), at least 2,500 people were arrested in the military action.
And one of her friends was killed, Han Lay said.
“He did not even protest. He went to a restaurant for coffee one night and someone shot him,” she said.
Han Lay’s family is safe, she said, but communication with them is sporadic because the internet is regularly cut off in Myanmar. She asked that the BBC not publish the name of her hometown to protect them.
Han Lay’s public political remarks, including direct criticism of the Myanmar army and calls in an interview with fans on the competition’s official channel to ‘win the revolution’, are not common among contestants, who often preferring to remain apolitical.
Prior to the competition, Lyv Chile’s Miss Grand Cambodia called on fans to stay out of politics.
But Han Lay considers speaking out her ‘duty’, she said. She calls Ms Suu Kyi her ‘biggest inspiration’. The ousted Democratic leader was charged last week with violating Myanmar’s official secrecy law, a charge that carries up to 14 years in prison.
Han Lay had previously planned to become a flight attendant after the study, but she said she was now unsure about which direction to take. Some have tried to persuade her to enter politics, she said, but she does not think it is for her.
Meanwhile, she plans to keep her voice to speak.
“These are crimes against humanity. That is why we want the UN to act urgently,” she said. “We want our leader back and we want real democracy back.”