Wimbledon has reportedly told supporters of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai that they are not welcome to wear T-shirts, raise banners or speak to the media about the player who went into hiding after a top Chinese official was accused of rape.
Wimbledon appears to have given in to demands from China’s communist rulers to ban Peng Shuai supporters from the stadium.
Outraged by the ban on supporting the Chinese player, Martina Navratilova, a tennis player, took to Twitter to blow up the British tennis organization.
What? talking prohibited?!? WTH? https://t.co/RRsTVhHMWd
– Martina Navratilova (@martina) 4 July 2022
Navratilova added that this type of censorship is typical of China and Russia but not of the UK.
yes. That’s what Russia and China are going to do, right? But the UK? hmmm
– Martina Navratilova (@martina) 4 July 2022
“We didn’t have these things when we went in because we were worried about not being allowed in,” He said Jason Leith of the Free Tibet Organization. “So we wore it, and we were just walking around, and some people wanted selfies with us, so we were taking pictures with people,” Leith said.
They started asking, are you planning to do any direct protest? Are you planning to disrupt things? Then they asked, “Oh, would you mind coming over here so we can check your bags?”
“Then they started going through our bags. I think they were looking for the flags. They were looking for anything that could be used for any other form of protest.”
Leith claims that he and his group were allowed to stay as long as they didn’t talk to Peng Shuai about anyone.
Shuai rocked the tennis world last year with her accusations.
As early as November of 2021, Shuai posted a message on her Chinese social media account saying that she was sexually assaulted in 2019 by Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli. But soon her Weibo account was closed, and the post was deleted. Shuai then spent nearly a month in isolation, not appearing in public alone for more than three weeks.
By the following month, after weeks out of the public eye, she suddenly appeared again and claimed that she had never intended to accuse anyone of sexual misconduct.
Since that time, Shuai has only appeared in government-controlled and approved appearances, and few feel she has since had a chance to speak out.
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