WTA Tournaments suspended in China amidst Peng Shuai concerns
The WTA has suspended all the 11 events of the tournament which were going to take place in China.
On 2 December, the editor of China's ruling Communist Party newspaper shared a video online, in which he mentioned that the missing tennis star Peng Shuai was watching a match on Sunday. With this, the party tried to allay fears abroad that China's prolific tennis player had made serious allegations of sexual harassment against a prominent politician. At the same time, in the midst of all this, the Women's Tennis Association has decided to suspend all the tennis tournaments going to be held in China and Hong Kong. WTA Tour chairman Simon says in this matter that this decision has been taken in view of the questions being raised regarding the safety of Chinese female tennis player Peng Shuai.
Making the announcement, Simon said, “I am announcing the immediate suspension of all WTA tournaments in China, including Hong Kong."
Further, he said, “In good conscience, I don’t see how I can ask our athletes to compete there when Peng Shuai is not allowed to communicate freely and has seemingly been pressured to contradict her allegation of sexual assault. Given the current state of affairs, I am also greatly concerned about the risks that all of our players and staff could face if we were to hold events in China in 2022."
Global Times editor Hu Jin has shared this video on Twitter, which most Chinese people cannot see. It can be clearly seen in the video that Peng is standing with the rest, to which Hu Jin said it was a youth championship in Beijing. Earlier, on Saturday, Xu Jin made a statement via Twitter that Peng would soon appear in public.
Peng Shuai - a target
The government's silence in response to Peng's disappearance and information about him has led to calls for a boycott of the February Winter Games in Beijing, a prestigious tournament for the Communist Party. Not only this, the women's professional tour has even threatened to snatch the tournament from China. If he doesn't assure to defend the former number one doubles player. The discussion about Peng inside China has been removed from the website. On Friday, a government press conference said that they did not know anything about Peng's disappearance.
In this regard, Simon stated, “Chinese officials have been provided the opportunity to cease this censorship, verifiably prove that Peng is free and able to speak without interference or intimidation, and investigate the allegation of sexual assault in a full, fair, and transparent manner."
