Belgrade – Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has strongly criticised the Australian authorities’ treatment of Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic.
Since arriving in Australia, the unvaccinated top athlete has been “harassed and tortured”, Vucic told Britain’s BBC. He had been “treated like a mass murderer”.
A few hours earlier, the Australian Federal Court had rejected Djokovic’s appeal against the cancellation of his visa. The 34-year-old has to leave Australia and will not take part in the Australian Open, which starts on Monday.
The harassment against Djokovic has reached “unprecedented proportions”, Vucic told Serbian media. A “witch hunt” had been sparked against him and the media had created a “lynching mood”, he said. “Novak was used to make an example of how the world order works.” But Djokovic could return to Serbia “with his head held high”.
Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic expressed similar sentiments. She was furious that the government’s lawyer in the proceedings before the Federal Court stated that less than 50 per cent of the population in Serbia had been doubly vaccinated.
This was an “open lie”, Brnabic said. “We currently have 58 percent fully vaccinated, and 37 percent received the booster.” But the figures Brnabic gave probably referred to the proportion of those vaccinated among the adult population. Among the total population, it had been 47 per cent at last count, according to Our World in Data.
