Novak Djokovic ?lured to Australia to be humiliated?, says Serbia

The 34-year-old champion, who was born in the Serb capital, is in detention in an immigration hotel in Melbourne pending a legal challenge to Australia's decision on Wednesday to cancel a visa allowing him to play in the Australian Open.

In an op ed for the news portal Iskra, reprinted by the pro-government tabloid Informer, the acclaimed Serbian film-maker Emir Kusturica argued Djokovic's detention was "not just a lesson to the noble Serb", but to everyone.

Kusturica said the "arrest of Novak Djokovic, first among the free, a rebel who does not want the chains of the new world and believes in a more just order" recalled the plot of a movie in which prominent citizens were arrested as a lesson to the rest.

Australian officials have said the player, who has refused to reveal his Covid vaccination status but previously said he was opposed to vaccination, was refused entry because he failed to meet exemption requirements. They have also said the player is free to leave the country whenever he chooses.

"Hasn't the world already become a prison of which barbed wire is the most expressive symbol?" Kusturica asked. "Aren't the punishments for those who refuse to be jabbed just another step by the world government?"

The president of the Serbian parliament, Ivica Dačić, a former prime minister whose Socialist party of Serbia is a partner in the country's coalition government, said Djokovic was enduring "despicable political harassment".

Any country in the world "would gladly give citizenship to Mr Djokovic, let alone let him visit for a tournament", Dacic Dačić said, calling Australia's behaviour "shameful" and the result of "political instability in that country since elections are approaching".