DJOKOVIC GO HOME - IMPULSO
Before this decision to cancel his visa, the Serbian was held for eight hours at the Tullamarine International Airport in the aforementioned city of Melbourne, where he was finally notified that he must return to his country of origin "on the first available flight", Australian news site The Age promptly reported.
"Novak Djokovic's visa was canceled and he was informed that he must leave the country this Thursday (there is a 14-hour difference with Argentina) because he failed to show the local Border Force sufficient evidence for his medical exemption," the media outlet noted.
Djokovic had been enabled to play the Open with an exceptional measure that only allowed him to participate without having any type of coronavirus vaccine applied, something that constitutes an inexcusable requirement for the rest of the participating tennis players, which in itself woke up great controversies in the field of this sport.
Of course, that raised record of exceptionality did not have its correlation with the provisions of the state of Victoria, of which Melbourne is its capital, and when Djokovic was notified of the issue, he was already in flight to play the first Grand Slam of the year.
So immediately upon stepping into the local airport, Djokovic was detained by the Border Force authorities, who took his cell phone and kept him virtually "incommunicado", while his team of assistants had to wait in the hall of the place escorted by two police officers. security.
The first to go out to protest against this measure was the tennis player's own father, Srdjan Djokovic, who in statements to Serbian media replicated by local Channel 7, stated regarding his son's refusal to be vaccinated against Covid-19 that she represents “A fight for freedom in the world, not just one of Novak. If they don't let him go, we'll take to the streets because it's everyone's fight,” said Djokovic Sr.
And immediately afterwards, the one who intervened, taking the matter to diplomatic spheres, was the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, after managing to contact the tennis player.
“I just spoke with Novak and told him that all of Serbia is with him. That is why our authorities are taking all measures to stop the harassment of the best tennis player in the world in the shortest possible time. In accordance with all the norms of international public law, our country will fight for him, for justice and truth,” he publicly warned.
The immediate response to that demonstration was the cancellation of Djokovic's visa, while some European media came out in defense of the tennis player and for example the British The Telegraph headlined "they treat him like a criminal", although the Australian authorities warned that the tennis player The same rules apply to everyone.
The issue had already begun its international diplomatic escalation when the Prime Minister himself, Scott Morrison, left a strong warning to Djokovic, pointing out that "if the evidence for his medical exemption is insufficient, he will not be treated differently from others and will be on the next plane home, because there shouldn't be any special rules for him at all."
A FAMOUS ANTI-VACCINES
The history of Djokovic, 34, as a recognized "anti-vaccine", had its hottest moment in June 2020, when he organized the so-called "Adria Tour", which was nothing more than a couple of exhibition tournaments between friends in the that social distancing was not respected nor were chinstraps required for participants or the public present.
The tour that began in his hometown, Belgrade, and continued in Croatian Zadar, ended in disaster, with a large number of infected, including Djokovic himself, who reported being positive for coronavirus on June 23, 2020. Now the anti-vaccine "crusade", despite its alleged privileges, turned against him.