Navratilova slams 'oppressive' US

Navratilova did not return home after the 1975 US Open

The Czechoslovakian-born tennis legend Martina Navratilova has said her adoptive homeland - the United States - can be as oppressive as the communist country she fled nearly three decades ago.

In fleeing injustice I simply exchanged one system which oppresses freedom of thought for another

Martina Navratilova

Ms Navratilova, who won 18 grand slam singles titles during the 1970s and 1980s, also wrote in the German newspaper Die Zeit that all big decisions in the US were determined by just one factor - money.

The tennis star took up permanent residency in the US in 1975, failing to return home after the US Open of that year.

"I grew up in a complicated system in Czechoslovakia - a system in which one was not allowed to think or speak freely, or to decide for oneself what to do or who to be," she wrote.

"The most absurd thing is that in fleeing that injustice I simply exchanged one system which oppresses freedom of thought for another."

Pseudo-tolerance

The nine-times Wimbledon champion singled out President George W Bush's Republican Party for attack.

"I used to read in the Czechoslovak newspapers that the capitalists were terrible people and everyone one except the Communists lied," she wrote.

"But the Republicans manipulate public opinion and sweep any controversial issues under the carpet."

"It's depressing. Decisions in America are based solely on the question of 'how much money will come out of it' and not on the questions of how much health, morals or the environment suffer as a result."

Navratilova, who is openly homosexual and a prominent gay rights campaigner, also condemned a country which persistently harps on about tolerance of minorities.

"I hate this word. When we are constantly told to be tolerant is sounds almost as though that we have to put up with stinking people by holding our noses.

"I don't want this kind of pseudo-tolerance - I want to live and let others live - exactly how they want to."