Shuai Peng of China serves during a tennis match on September 23, 2019 in Wuhan, China.
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Wang He / Getty Images
Shuai Peng of China serves during a tennis match on September 23, 2019 in Wuhan, China.
Wang He / Getty Images
The head of the Women’s Tennis Association is questioning the authenticity of an email he received purportedly from Chinese star tennis player Peng Shuai, who has not been informed since she made the report. forced sexual assault against a top Communist Party official two weeks ago.
In one copy of email, published by China’s state-owned CGTN, Peng knowingly told WTA President and CEO Steve Simon that the allegations attributed to her were “untrue” and that “I’m not missing, It’s not like I’m unsafe. I’m just resting at home and everything is fine.”
Simon said in a declare Wednesday that the email he received “only raised my concerns” about “Peng’s safety and whereabouts.”
“It is very hard for me to believe that Peng Shuai actually wrote the email we received or to believe what is being attributed to her,” he said.
Peng is a former No. 1 tennis player in women’s doubles who won titles at Wimbledon 2013 and the French Open 2014. In a lengthy social media post earlier this month on Chinese platform Weibo, she speaks Former Deputy Prime Minister Zhang Gaoli “forced” her to have sex. Zhang, 75, held the post between 2013 and 2018.
“I was terrified that afternoon,” Peng wrote. “I never agreed, cried the whole time.”
The post was quickly taken down and Peng’s social media account disappeared hours after it appeared. However, screenshots of the post continued to go viral online in China even as censors tried to remove references to it.
Amnesty International on Thursday weighed in, citing what it said was China’s attempt to “systematically silence” the country’s #MeToo movement and its “nonsense approach.” tolerance for criticism”.
“Peng’s recent statement that ‘everything is fine’ should not be taken for granted as China’s state media has a track record of forcing individuals to make statements. , or simply fabricated them,” Amnesty China researcher Doriane Lau said in a statement. declare. “These concerns will not go away unless Peng’s safety and whereabouts are confirmed.”
Earlier this week, Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka expressed her concerns in a tweet, saying that she hopes that Peng and her family are “safe and fine.”
“I am in shock with the current situation and I am sending her love and light. #Whereispengshuai,” she wrote.
Number 1 tennis player in the world Novak Djokovic also expressed concern and shock at the disappearance of Peng, as well as the French player Nicholas Mahut.
