Miss World organisers and contestants said today they had been made scapegoats for religious rioting in Nigeria that killed over 200 people.
After plans to stage the show in Nigeria sparked Christian-Muslim riots in the north of the country, the organisers decided to move the competition to Britain but flew into a storm of protest, with British media and lobby groups accusing them of having blood on their hands.
Organiser Ms Julia Morley said the deaths had nothing to do with the beauty pageant but were the work of a sole newspaper journalist who enraged Muslims by saying the Prophet Mohammad would probably have married a Miss World contestant.
"I am very sorry about the riots but also very sorry that we have become involved and it is not our fault," Ms Morley told reporters.
"A journalist made this problem and we hope journalists can put it right," she said, urging international media to support the contest when it is staged in London on December 7th.
Most of the 91 contestants echoed Ms Morley's stance, saying they were innocent scapegoats. Ms Morley said she did not expect any reprisals in Britain as a result of the Nigerian violence or the pageant to be a terror target.
But Oscar-winning actress turned parliamentarian Ms Glenda Jackson led calls for the contest to be halted: "The best thing to do after such fratricide and blood-letting is to cancel the whole competition".
Australian feminist Ms Germaine Greer said the prospect of staging the contest in London was "horrifying". Writer Ms Muriel Gray said: "These girls will be wearing swimwear dripping with blood".
Ms Morley said she was still calculating the cost of moving the show and accepted it was likely to be high although "not in the millions". She said it would still go ahead on December 7th as planned but that a London venue had still to be finalised.