The immigration fiasco surrounding Novak Djokovic has stolen all the tennis headlines for the last week, sidelining a much more serious issue – that of the safety of China’s Peng Shuai.
While Djokovic was held in detention over the weekend, claims that his wellbeing was at risk were pure fantasy. That’s anything but the case for Peng, with mystery still surrounding her whereabouts.
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Former world No.4 and grand-slam winning doubles player Pam Shriver put the issue back on the agenda this morning with a simple tweet, highlighting the silence surrounding both Peng and Czech player Renata Voracova, who had her visa cancelled by Australian authorities on the weekend.
https://twitter.com/PHShriver/status/1480593719560527873?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Next week’s Australian Open will be the first grand slam tournament since Peng made accusations of sexual assault against a senior Chinese official on social media.
The post, in early November, was quickly removed, as concerns grew for the safety of the 36-year-old.
Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, Defence Minister Peter Dutton said more needs to be done to draw attention to China’s treatment of women.
“I don’t understand how, in the year 2021, in the #MeToo age, we can have an international female tennis star who claims to have been raped and sexually assaulted and she’s now effectively under house arrest and has had her social media account wiped, and somehow that’s behaviour that we should tolerate,” Mr Dutton told The Sydney Morning Herald.
“Well, it’s not – and we’re better off to speak publicly about it because otherwise the behaviour won’t change.”
Beijing is due to host the Winter Olympics in less than a month’s time, meaning the eyes of the world will be on China.
Late last year Peng took part in two video calls with International Olympic Committee boss Thomas Bach, although the IOC later conceded it couldn’t guarantee that Peng was safe.
No transcripts of the calls were released.
“We can’t provide you with absolute certainty on anything,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said.
“All we can do is do the best we can in the process that we believe is in the best interests of the wellbeing of the athlete.
“We can’t give assurances and we don’t know the full facts.”
Speaking to CNN in December, human rights lawyer Teng Biao said the situation was totally unacceptable.
“Of course, Peng Shuai is not safe,” he said.
“What we know is she’s still alive and she’s still in China. But she is definitely not safe, not well and she’s totally controlled by the Chinese authorities.
“And nobody knows where she is being detained.”
A week before Christmas Peng retracted her sexual assault allegations, with the grand slam doubles champion claiming it was all a “misunderstanding.”
The WTA has announced it is suspending events in China until the allegations are investigated “in a full, fair and transparent manner.”
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