Australian Open - Hand Out Peng Shuai Shirts

When Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai publicly revealed she had been a victim of past sexual abuse, the Chinese government should have immediately established a full, fair and transparent investigation, without censorship, into her allegations. Any victim and survivor deserves to be heard and deserves to have justice.

Instead, the Chinese government decided to scrub Peng Shuai from the internet and placed her under what appears to be house arrest. No one knows to what extent she is actually free to speak because the few appearances she has made since making the initial allegation have appeared to be scripted and made under duress. With stars like Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka expressing grave concerns for her safety and well-being, the Women’s Tennis Association announced it would not be hosting tournaments in China until concerns about Peng Shuai’s safety were addressed.

But sadly Tennis Australia has not taken such a firm stance in favor of human rights and basic standards of justice. In fact, Tennis Australia called police on human rights activists at the 2022 Australian Open for simply wearing shirts asking the same question Naomi Osaka, Serena Williams and fans the world over have asked: “Where is Peng Shuai?”

Given this disappointing turn of events, my idea is quite simple. How about we present major difficulties for Tennis Australia by printing off one thousand of these shirts and giving them out for free to spectators entering the Women’s Grand Final.

I think if any of us were in Peng Shuai’s position, silenced and cut off from the world by an unaccountable government, we would hope that someone, somewhere would care. I think most of us would hope that people across the world would not look the other way but instead raise as much noise and hell about it as possible. This is the idea behind printing off a thousand Peng Shuai shirts for the final.

Every cent raised here on GoFundMe will go towards the printing of these shirts. We will account for every single dollar spent with receipts.

To clarify, it has absolutely nothing to do with the upcoming election, it has nothing to do with Australian party politics, this has nothing to do with the organizers. This is not about anything other than raising awareness for a human being in need. If people would like me to hand over control over this project to a more neutral party dedicated to helping Peng Shuai, I’m more than happy to do so. Let’s just please help Peng Shuai, it’s really up to us.