Serbia’s leader denounces Australia’s treatment of Novak Djokovic as ‘Orwellian’

File image of Novak Djokovic (Image: AP)

President Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia blasted the Australian government Sunday for what he called the “harassment” of Novak Djokovic, deriding the legal process that led to the tennis star’s deportation one day before the start of the Australian Open as “Orwellian” and saying that the player would be welcomed home.

“I talked to Novak a while ago, and I encouraged him, and I told him that I can’t wait for him to come to Serbia and return to his country, and to be where he is always welcome,” Vucic said in a statement on the day that Djokovic left Australia after a legal dispute surrounding his coronavirus vaccination status.

“They think that they humiliated Djokovic with this 10-day harassment, and they actually humiliated themselves,” Vucic said.

In Serbia, where Djokovic is deeply revered and widely respected as one of his country’s greatest sports stars, even those who did not support his decision to remain unvaccinated said that he had been maligned and mistreated.

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Dr. Predrag Kon, a member of Serbia’s pandemic response team who has been a lead voice in calling for people to get vaccinated as the rapidly spreading omicron variant brings a new wave of infection, joined those expressing outrage.

“I am shocked by the decision,” he wrote on Facebook. “This is by no means in the spirit of the International Health Regulations, which speak of the free movement of passengers, goods and services. I wish he never got into this situation.”

Vuk Jeremic, who was Serbia’s foreign minister from 2007 to 2012 before serving as president of the United Nations General Assembly, said that Djokovic’s refusal to be vaccinated should be seen in the context of the region.

“Unfortunately, such is the widespread opinion in most of southeast Europe, the underlying reasons being deep and to do with general distrust toward governments and institutions, after decades of terrible corruption and growing inequality,” Jeremic said.

But he said that in no way justified the events as they played out.

“The Australian government’s conduct toward him has been utterly disgraceful,” Jeremic said in an email sent as Djokovic’s legal team was making its arguments in court.

A panel of three federal judges went on to rule that Australia’s immigration minister was within his rights to cancel the unvaccinated tennis star’s visa on the basis that the player could pose a risk to public health and order.

Jeremic called the Australian government’s mantra in the case — “rules are rules” — hypocrisy.

“All the other tournament participants who got the medical exemption from the same medical panel got the same visa and entered Australia without hindrance,” Jeremic said. “Novak is a victim of brinkmanship by shameless populists, exclusively driven by snap opinion polls.”

After revoking Djokovic’s visa a second time, all the Australian government had to do to win its legal case this weekend was show that the tennis star “may” cause harm if allowed to stay in the country despite being unvaccinated against the coronavirus.

But in Serbia, the decision to kick Djokovic out of Australia was greeted with outrage. On Sunday, the headline of a leading tabloid, Kurir, captured the mood: “Shame on Australia! The biggest shame in the history of sports happened in Melbourne.”

The Serbian Tennis Federation said it was a victory of politics over sports.

Djokovic, in an emailed statement, said that he was “extremely disappointed” but that he respected the ruling. He left Australia on a flight to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, a few hours after releasing the statement, which his team said would be his last comments on the matter until the Australian Open was over.

While Djokovic said he was uncomfortable with all of the attention and hoped the focus could return to tennis, there was agreement in Serbia that the matter had been handled poorly. Many believe that Djokovic would not have been treated the same way if he had come from a richer country.

The tennis player’s father, Srdjan Djokovic — who is not known for understatement and who compared his son to Jesus Christ during the ordeal — broke several days of silence to repost an image on Instagram on Sunday morning.

Written over pictures of his son winning trophies were the words: “The attempt to assassinate the best athlete in the world has ended, 50 bullets in Novak’s chest.”

The imbroglio could have been avoided, Vucic said, if Australia had made it clear that the player would have to be vaccinated to enter the country and play.

The Serbian leader accused the lawyers representing Australia’s government of not telling the truth. In particular, he took issue with the way Serbia’s coronavirus vaccination rates were presented in court.

“They say that less than 50% of vaccinated citizens are in Serbia, and officially 58%,” he said.

Vucic was citing figures for adults, but the vaccination rate for the country’s total population is about 50%, according to Our World in Data. While that rate is higher than in some other Central and Eastern European nations, it is far lower than in much of Western Europe.

It is also well below the 91.6% of the population over age 16 in Australia who are fully vaccinated, a figure cited by Immigration Minister Alex Hawke — and one that the government said Djokovic’s presence in the country could undermine.

Novak Djokovic has been largely silent on the subject of vaccination, though he said in April 2020, before coronavirus vaccines were available, that he opposed the idea of making inoculation compulsory for travel.

“I am no expert, but I do want to have an option to choose what’s best for my body,” he said. “I am keeping an open mind, and I’ll continue to research on this topic because it is important, and it will affect all of us.”

When he arrived in Australia this month, he acknowledged that he had not been vaccinated but presented evidence of previous coronavirus infection to gain an exemption for travel.

However, in the end, the case revolved less around the technical aspects of the case and more around the symbolism of the moment — both in Australia and Serbia.

For Australians, who have endured some of the world’s longest pandemic lockdowns, Djokovic’s decision not to be vaccinated flew in the face of collective efforts to stop the virus.

In Serbia, Vucic and others often tied the treatment of the nation’s star tennis player to the nation itself. The president said Sunday that Serbia would not treat athletes in such a manner.

“We will show that we are better than the Australian government,” he said.

Vucic said that even though Djokovic had lost his fight to compete in Australia, he remained a hero in his homeland.

“He can return to his country and look everyone in the eye with his head held high,” he said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Marc Santora

c.2022 The New York Times Company