Dhe Australian border authorities have canceled a second visa that was supposed to secure participation in the tournament in Melbourne: Czech player Renata Voráčová, who has been preparing for the Australian Open for weeks on site, was detained in the same hotel as the one in which she was deported the world number one Novak Djokovic has been sitting since Wednesday.
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She is said to have entered the country in December with a similar exemption from Tennis Australia, like Novak Djokovic on Wednesday night. At that time the border guards hadn’t found anything wrong. Voráčová, like the Serb, had stated that he recently had Corona.
The Australian authorities are currently combing the list of players – those who are already in the country and those who plan to enter these days. Allegedly three of the total of 26 with special permits, including Djokovic and Voráčová, are already in the country – it is currently completely open whether this will lead to further expulsions of players from Australia.
“Djokovic can leave the country”
Djokovic and the 38-year-old Czech are in quarantine at the Park Hotel in Melbourne. The Serb’s relatives said he was “in custody”. The Australian Interior Minister Karen Andrews strongly contradicted this on Friday: “Mr Djokovic is not being held in Australia, he is free to leave at any time, and the border guards will make it possible for him to do so.” However, the 34-year-old makes no move to leave the country to leave – he wants to wait for the judge’s verdict on his expulsion, which is expected on Monday. On Friday Djokovic got in touch via Instagram and thanked the “people all over the world for their continued support. I can feel it and I really appreciate it, ”he wrote.
Mary Crock, a lawyer at the University of Sydney, warned against too high expectations of the judgment: Djokovic had to “prove that the cancellation of his visa was based on a legal error”. If the visa has been canceled, it has very long-term consequences – both for entry to the fifth continent as well as for the planned entry into any other country: “Because you are always asked whether you have been deported or excluded”.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison confirmed on Wednesday that the player’s visa had been “canceled”. The success of the lawsuit against the decision now depends on which visa the player applied for, said the professor. “In this area, the law is heavily weighted in favor of the respective government.”
The Czech player Renata Voráčová is also detained at the hotel.
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Image: AFP
Around a thousand Serbs and fans of the tennis player demonstrated in front of the Park Hotel in Melbourne on Friday for his release and participation in the tournament. Two women were arrested who were demonstrating for the release of asylum seekers who are being held in the same hotel as Djokovic.
His brother Djordje criticized the “terrible” conditions in the hotel. He said his team was looking for a judicial decision because Djokovic could face a three-year ban on entry to Australia if he was deported. He also shared the first message that Novak Djokovic had sent to him on the day of Orthodox Christian Christmas: “God sees everything. Morals and ethics as the highest ideals are stars that lead us to a spiritual ascent. My gain is a spiritual one; all of them here have only material advantages. ”The chairman of the Serbian Orthodox Christian Congregation in Melbourne said the team had asked to send a priest to Djokovic on the holiday. It was “inhuman” not to allow this, said the clergyman.
Meanwhile, it is becoming increasingly clear that the processes in Australia did not work: Abul Rizvi, the former deputy head of the immigration service, sees a “breach of duty” on the Australian side as the reason for the chaos around the athlete. It is likely that the electronic visa process over the Internet gave him the green light, but the border guards then asked for additional documents.
This, however, was not clear even in the administration of the country: For example, the Federal Minister of Health Greg Hunt proves with two letters that have since been published that he had already advised the Australian Tennis Association (TA) at the end of November that all travelers must be vaccinated twice against Corona – even if, like Djokovic, they have contracted Corona in the past six months and are therefore likely to be immune.
“There was this exchange of letters between the federal government and Tennis Australia. I was told that the members of the Victoria government had not seen this correspondence, ”said Acting Prime Minister Jacinta Allan, who is replacing Prime Minister Daniel Andrews, who is currently on cure abroad, on Friday. Victoria, however, approved Djokovic’s entry after examination. Following his arrival and the concerns of border officials, Victoria refused to provide any further assistance to the star.
The Australian Tennis Association apparently knowingly sent false information about the entry requirements to Australia to the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) in December. This is what the Australian daily Australian claims in its Saturday edition under the heading “Tennis Australian knew that the vaccination advice was incorrect”. Accordingly, the ATP passed the information on to the top players. To enter Australia, you only had to prove that you had Covid in the past six months. However, TA knew that this reference was wrong.
The association, in turn, denied the alleged misinformation to the players about the entry regulations. “We expressly reject that the group of players was knowingly wrongly informed,” said Tennis Australia on Friday the newspaper “The Herald Sun”.
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