IOC call with Peng raises more questions
LONDON: A video call between the head of the International Olympic Committee and Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai, whose nearly three-week disappearance from public view sparked an outcry, was meant to reassure the world that she was safe— but instead has raised more questions. Concern grew in the last week for the former No. 1-ranked doubles player—who hadn’t been seen since accusing a senior Chinese official of sexual assault on Nov. 2.
Tennis stars and fans alike demanded to know #WhereIsPengShuai, and the head of the Women’s Tennis Association threatened to pull lucrative events from China.
On Sunday, the IOC said Peng spoke to its president, Thomas Bach, and other officials in a 30-minute video call from Beijing. According to the organisation’s statement, she reassured them that she was well and thanked them for their concern —while asking for privacy. IOC posted a photo that shows Bach facing a screen on which Peng appears but did not release video of the call. On the same day, China Open posted videos and photos of her appearance at a youth tennis tournament in Beijing that morning.
The IOC’s short statement, which offered few details and no follow-up on her allegations, seems unlikely to close the door on Peng’s case—and it’s leading to increasing criticism of the sports body, which was already facing calls for a boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, which open on Feb. 4. Even after the statement was published Sunday, the WTA repeated what chairman and CEO Steve Simon has been saying for more than a week, calling for a full, fair and transparent investigation “without censorship.”
Yaqiu Wang, a spokeswoman for Human Rights Watch, tweeted that the IOC is “actively playing a role in the Chinese government’s enforced disappearance, coercion and propaganda machinery.” When asked about the criticism, IOC said in a statement Monday that the main purpose of the call was to find out how Peng was—and that she “was very clear in confirming that she is safe and well.”
She agreed to stay in touch with Olympic officials—including having dinner with Bach in Beijing in January—and the body said it told her she could reach out whenever “she deems it appropriate.” It added that in order to respect Peng’s privacy, it would not comment further.
Peng is just one of a number of Chinese businesspeople, activists and ordinary people who have disappeared in recent years after criticising party figures or in crackdowns on corruption or pro-democracy and labour rights campaigns. The tennis star accused a former member of the Communist Party’s ruling Standing Committee, Zhang Gaoli, of sexual assault in a social media post that was removed quickly.
All the while, news of her allegations was blacked out at home. CNN reported that its signal in China had been blocked during reporting on Peng. A search for her name Monday on Weibo, one of China’s leading social media platforms, produced only a few posts, and none that refer to the sexual assault allegation or the questions about her whereabouts. The WTA is the first sports body to defiantly stand up to China’s financial clout—in what many see as a sharp contrast to IOC, which says its policy is “quiet diplomacy.”“The statements make the IOC complicit in the Chinese authority’s malicious propaganda and lack of care for basic human rights and justice,” Global Athlete, a lobby group for athletes, said in a statement.