For weeks now, we still haven’t heard from Peng Shuai. Some, it seems, want everything to stay that way.
Peng Shuai (36) is a Chinese tennis player, possibly the best doubles player that country has ever had.
And right now, we don’t know where he is.
True, at times he has appeared sporadically, in brief flashes, at social events and even alongside the giant Yao Ming, the best basketball player China has produced.
Peng Shuai, in red, together with several Chinese personalities, such as the giant Yao Ming, on December 20
But then nothing.
Where are you going?
What has become of her?
(Peng Shuai has been out of the picture since early November, when we learned that Zhang Ghaoli, a former Chinese vice president and high-ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party, may have sexually abused her; she had reported it herself.)
Missing
There is hardly any news of Peng Shuai since November, when she reported that a Chinese leader had raped her
These days in Melbourne, the scene of the Australian Open, a human rights activist wanted to remember the Chinese tennis player.
“Where is Peng Shuai?” (Where is Peng Shuai?), read the banner and the shirt worn by Drew Pavlou on a smaller track, during a training session by Naomi Osaka, one of the most critical voices in the Peng Shuai case.
The video is circulating on social networks: a tournament security guard confiscates the activist’s banner, who asks why.
– What is the reason for the confiscation? Drew Pavlou asks him.
“I can’t tell you anything more. You can ask Tennis Australia. But I will tell you that the conditions of entry to our premises prohibit clothing, posters and signs that are commercial or political –answers the employee.
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–So, from your point of view and that of Tennis Australia, the Peng Shuai case is a political matter, is that correct? –continues the activist.
“Yes,” replies the employee, who goes one step further and asks the group of activists to remove their shirts that display the same message.
Then the police show up.
–Tennis Australia has established some rules and they have to be obeyed –say the agents now, who stand up and don’t think to move from the script.
Tennis Australia says it considers Peng Shuai’s safety “a priority”, but defends the confiscation of the shirts and banners:
–We will continue to work with the WTA and the global tennis community to better clarify his situation and we will do everything possible to preserve his well-being, ”says the organization of the Australian Open.
A day later, Drew Pavlou posts another entry on the networks announcing that he has raised almost 4,000 dollars (about 3,500 euros) in twelve hours and that with them he will print thousands of T-shirts that he will distribute, free of charge, among Melbourne spectators, with the message :
“Where is Peng Shuai?”.
Martina Navratilova, tennis legend, says that Tennis Australia is “cowardly against China”.
