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Australia has been accused of a “political witch hunt” and seeking to deliberately humiliate tennis star Novak Djokovic, in a significant escalation of the international furore over the cancellation of his visa.
Serbia’s President and Prime Minister both came out swinging in support of their country’s national hero overnight as the men’s world number one’s father declared his son was “a prisoner of these idiots”.
Djokovic looks set to spend the weekend in a Melbourne detention facility awaiting a Monday Federal Court hearing for his appeal against the last-minute voiding of his visa, based on an alleged failure to “provide appropriate evidence” to justify his entry.
If unsuccessful, he’ll be deported on Monday afternoon instead of defending his Australian Open title and a chance to overtake rivals Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal as player with the most grand slam wins in men’s tennis history.
The situation on Thursday escalated into an international diplomatic incident as Serbian leaders accused Australia of playing politics.
“What is not fair-play is the political witch hunt (being conducted against Novak), by everybody including the Australian Prime Minister pretending that the rules apply to all,” Mr Vucic told the media on Thursday, according to a translation by Agence France-Presse news agency.
Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, pushed on whether she agreed with the President, said Djokovic was being treated differently to other players and “that is what makes us think it’s political.
“We will try to do our best to make sure Novak is treated equally and gets all the rights that he’s entitled to. That is the only thing I can say,” she told Sky News in an interview.
“And Serbia stands by Novak. I stand by Novak. All of our people stand by Novak and his family in these difficult times.”
Djokovic had been granted a medical exemption to compete in the first grand slam of the year through what Tennis Australia described as a “rigorous review process involving two separate independent panels of medical experts”.
But Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the evidence was “insufficient” to enter the country, having earlier warned Djokovic would be “on the next plane home” if that was the case.
The Australian Border Force sensationally cancelled his visa on Thursday morning, hours after the tennis star landed in Melbourne, saying he “failed to provide appropriate evidence to meet the entry requirements to Australia”.
Serbian authorities are fighting to get Djokovic released from the Park Hotel detention facility where he is being held and into private rental accommodation until his appeal is heard on Monday morning.
Ms Brnabic said she was pushing for a meeting with Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Karen Andrews.
In an extraordinary press conference overnight, the tennis player’s family gathered with several of his Australian Open trophies and a large graffiti sign to sharply criticise Australian authorities.
Srdjan Djokovic said Australia should be ashamed of the way it was treating his son, saying “our pride is a prisoner of these idiots” and calling for the “whole free world together with Serbia” to rise up.
“Novak and his team filed the same type of documents, as those 25 other tennis players (with exemptions) and it didn’t have any problems, just Novak,” he said, appearing to conflate the 26 applications for medical exemptions tournament director Craig Tiley said were made with the “handful” he said were granted.
“They wanted to humiliate him. They could have said don’t come Novak, and that would have been okay.
“But no, they wanted to humiliate him, and they’re still keeping him in prison. He’s not in detention. He’s in prison.”
His mother, Dijana Djokovi, described the hotel as “dirty”, with “terrible food”.
Djokovic has not revealed his vaccination status but in April last year said he was “opposed to vaccination”. It has been speculated that he was granted an exemption based on having been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the past six months.
On Thursday Mr Morrison said Health Minister Greg Hunt had written to Tennis Australia in November warning international arrivals would not be granted quarantine-free entry unless they met Australia’s official definition of fully vaccinated, “regardless of whether they have received foreign vaccine exemptions”.
“I can confirm that people who’ve contracted COVID-19 within the past six months and seek to enter Australia from overseas and have not received two doses of a TGA approved or TGA recognised vaccine are not considered fully vaccinated,” Mr Hunt wrote, according the the Prime Minister.
Mr Vucic, who earlier in the day said the whole of Serbia was with Djokovic described Djokovic’s treatment as “infamous in the proper sense of the term”.
“I fear that this relentless political pursuit of Novak will continue ’til the moment they can prove something, because when you cannot defeat somebody then you turn to these type of things,” he said.
The ABF is investigating allegations that at least two other unvaccinated foreign citizens have already arrived in Australia for the Open, Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews confirmed on Thursday in an interview on 2GB.
“The ABF is aware of two other individuals who have used the same exemption letter issued by Tennis Australia as the basis for their medical exemption for the purposes of travelling to Australia,” an ABF spokesperson told the ABC late on Thursday.
“ABF is making inquiries regarding these individuals, as the investigation is ongoing, we won’t be making any further comment at this time.”
Source: 9News
