Former tennis player Peng Shuai (35) from China published a long blog post on the Weibo platform where she told about a sexual assault that China’s former Deputy Prime Minister Zhang Gaoli (75) allegedly committed, reports a number of media outlets, including CNN and the BBC.
20 minutes after the publication on Tuesday, the post is said to have been deleted by the country’s authorities after an extensive censorship campaign was launched in China.
No media has been able to reach Shuai, and all her social media accounts have been shut down.
The episode Shuai referred to happened ten years ago. Then she is said to have been locked in a room with Gaoli and raped, while the politician’s wife kept watch outside the door.
– I was so scared that afternoon. I did not give consent and was scared all the time, Shuai wrote in the post.
The two are said to have met for the first time in 2007, and had no contact after the abuse until 2018, when Gaoli left the Chinese government.
Although the post was deleted, screenshots have been spread at a rapid pace.
Peng Shuai was for a long time China’s best doubles player in tennis, and in 2013 she won in Wimbeldon with her partner Hsieh Su-wei. The following year, they topped Rolland Garros.
She retired in 2020.
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