(ANSA) - BEIJING, 05 NOV - China has obscured any reference to a message attributed to the tennis star Peng Shhuai, former world number one in the doubles, who accused a former communist leader on social network of forcing her into a sexual relationship, and then make her his mistress.
The accusation was formulated in a post published Tuesday on the official Weibo account of the 35-year-old Chinese, winner of the Roland Garros tournament in doubles in 2014, which was blacked out shortly after.
In a long text, Peng Shuai recounted three years of forced sex with former Deputy Prime Minister Zhang Gaoli, who from 2013 to 2018 was one of the most powerful politicians in China.
But as the censorship erased the message from the Chinese internet, shares crossed the border and spread like wildfire.
The authenticity of the post could not be verified and the athlete's entourage declined to comment.
Zhang Gaoli, for his part, did not comment publicly on the accusation.
According to Weibo data, a post on the player's official account has been viewed more than 100,000 times, but the content is unspecified.
(HANDLE).