Miss Canada International Lynsey Bennett (centre) gets a hug from her mother Marnie (right) as her father George (left) wipes his eyes after she announced that she will rejoin the 'Miss World' competition on Tuesday. Bennett left the competition in Nigeria after rioting broke out and over 200 people were killed. Bennett accepted the invitation of the organisers to rejoin the pageant, which will be held in London. - ReutersTHE VENUE for the December 7 'Miss World' finals is Alexandra Palace in northern London. The finals were originally scheduled for the city of Abuja in Nigeria but heavy rioting by Muslims in that city forced the organisers to leave over the weekend.
The rioting began in the nearby city of Kaduna on Wednesday after a reporter with Nigerian independent newspaper This Day wrote that Muslim prophet Mohammed would have married one of the Miss World contestants.
The offending article written by fashion writer Isioma Daniel said: "The Muslims thought it was immoral to bring 92 women to Nigeria to ask them to revel in vanity. What would Mohammed think? In all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from one of them."
On Monday, Nigeria said that 220 people had died in four days of unrest.
Julia Morley, head of Miss World, told the media that same day that it would have been 'absolutely unreasonable' for the organisation to cancel the competition out of respect for those who had died.
Morley also revealed that her moving the competition had personally cost her 2 million pounds and that she had to put up her family's South London home as security.
In an Associated Press article yesterday Morley is quoted to have said that she regretted the violence. However, she said the competition was not to blame.
"It had nothing to do with us," Morley is reported to have told Sky News, referring to the article.
"Nobody can help violence if a journalist says something detrimental about Muhammed, which is insensitive," said Morley.
"This is a young girl, one can't help feeling sorry that she wrote what she did. But it did not concern us. We are sorry that somebody said that, but we cannot be responsible for somebody's opinion."
Meanwhile Miss Canada, Lynsey Bennet, who withdrew from the competition late last week because of the unrest has now re-entered.
However, despite the change of venue Misses Switzerland, Austria, Denmark and Miss Korea have said that they will not be participating.
Of the contestants who had originally boycotted the contest in protest of the death by stoning sentence handed down to a 31-year-old Nigerian woman, Misses Costa Rica, Panama, Spain and Germany are expected to join.
Jamaica's representative to this year's competition, Danielle Ohayon, is in London with the 90 other contestants.
