Wimbledon protester Drew Pavlou says China is exporting repression to the West

Human rights activist Drew Pavlou says he was roughed up by Wimbledon security after he held up a sign asking about the fate of disappeared Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai.

Drew Pavlou, the Australian human rights activist who claims he was violently kicked out of Wimbledon by security officials after holding up a sign asking “Where is Peng Shuai?”, says that “rather than exporting liberal democracy to China, the West is now importing CCP values of repression and censorship.”

The 23-year-old Mr Pavlou held up the sign during the third set of the Wimbledon final between Nick Kyrgios and Novak Djokovic to call attention to the plight of Peng Shuai, who was disappeared by Chinese officials in 2021 after she accused a high ranking communist party official of sexual assault.

“I just wanted to hold up my sign and tried to choose a moment when I would not be too disruptive,” Mr Pavlou told The Daily Telegraph.

China's Peng Shuai. Photo: Adrian Dennis / AFP

“Almost soon as I did security were on top of me, they rushed me and grabbed my poster and started roughing me up.”

“They went massively over the top and pushed me backwards over a row of seats, and I had these two guys on top of me.”

“It got really hectic. One of them got really frustrated and pushed me down some stairs as they were leading me out, and I was slammed up against a wall with my arm twisted behind my back.”

“They treated me like a terrorist.”

Australian human rights campaigner Drew Pavlou (L) pictured wearing a "Where is Peng Shuai?" T-shirt. Photo: Paul Crock/AFP

Mr Pavlou, who says that he was released when they got to a public area on the ground floor on the condition he leave and not come back, pointed out that they were far more heavy handed with him than they were with a drunk woman who had been heckling Mr Kyrgios.

“The difference is they don’t want to lose Chinese sponsors,” he said.

Mr Pavlou said that he was concerned that this was another example of Western institutions doing the bidding of the Chinese government.

“Peng Shuai was a Wimbledon champion but no one wanted to talk about her for fear of upsetting Beijing and losing sponsorship,” Mr Pavlou claimed.

“Tennis administrators would be happy for her to be forgotten.”

“Rather than exporting liberal democracy to China, the West is now importing CCP values of repression and censorship – that’s why I do what I do,” he said.`

Mr Pavlou has been a long time critic of the Chinese Communist Party, was kicked out of the University of Queensland after a long running fight over his activism and claims that the school barred him because they did not want to jeopardise their access to the lucrative Chinese student market.

He made an unsuccessful bid for the Senate at the last election and was arrested in May by NSW Police after he refused their direction to move on while holding a sign reading, “Free Tibet, Free Uyghurs, Free Hong Kong.”