US President Donald Trump earlier said he had spoken with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to confirm the women were safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just spoke to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, of Australia, concerning the Iranian National Women\u2019s Soccer Team. He\u2019s on it! Five have already been taken care of,\u201d Trump said Monday on his Truth Social network, less than two hours after an initial post urging Australia to take them in.<\/p>\n
Trump added that \u201csome, however, feel they must go back because they are worried about the safety of their families, including threats to those family members if they don\u2019t return\u201d.<\/p>\n
Australian broadcaster ABC reported that five players evaded the team\u2019s handlers at their accommodation in the Gold Coast.<\/p>\n
Asked about their case on Sunday, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Australia \u201cstands in solidarity\u201d with the people of Iran.<\/p>\n
The son of Iran\u2019s late shah, US-based Reza Pahlavi, warned on Monday that the refusal to sing the anthem could have \u201cdire consequences\u201d, and urged Australia to offer the team protection.<\/p>\n
Pahlavi, who has not returned to Iran since before the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the monarchy, has billed himself as the man to lead a democratic transition to a secular Iran as the theocratic regime fights to survive.<\/p>\n
Politicians, human rights activists and even Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling have also called for the team to be offered official protection.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease, protect these young women,\u201d Rowling said in a post on social media.<\/p>\n
\u2018Save our girls\u2019 <\/p>\n
A presenter on Iranian state TV had branded the players \u201cwartime traitors\u201d after they stood motionless during the anthem before their match against South Korea.<\/p>\n
In subsequent games, the players saluted and sang.<\/p>\n
Crowds gathered outside the Gold Coast stadium where the side played their last match over the weekend, banging drums and shouting \u201cregime change for Iran\u201d.<\/p>\n
They then surrounded the Iranian team bus, chanting \u201clet them go\u201d and \u201csave our girls\u201d.<\/p>\n
On Monday, an AFP journalist saw members of the team speaking on phones from their hotel room balconies.<\/p>\n
Asked about the possibility of asylum, a spokesperson for Australia\u2019s Home Affairs department told AFP earlier it \u201ccannot comment on the circumstances of individuals\u201d.<\/p>\n
Amnesty International campaigner Zaki Haidari said the women faced persecution, or worse, if they were sent home.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of these team members probably have had their families already threatened,\u201d Haidari told AFP.<\/p>\n
\u201cThem going back… who knows what sort of punishment they will receive?\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s embassy in Australia did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
-Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump earlier said he had spoken with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to confirm the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[16751,35477,173355,85,9218,98509,3052,28164,5213,63616,19196,2993,1345,16609,126523,10543,6722,3556,111,139,69,1523,173579,3048,42591,544,213,7187,8229,61,11554,14578,6746,2248,2834],"class_list":["post-321283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-affairs","tag-anthem","tag-asylum","tag-australia","tag-before","tag-burke","tag-faced","tag-fears","tag-football","tag-footballers","tag-granted","tag-grants","tag-home","tag-iran","tag-irans","tag-match","tag-minister","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-persecution","tag-said","tag-singing","tag-some","tag-sports","tag-team","tag-they","tag-to","tag-tony","tag-tuesday","tag-visiting","tag-women","tag-womens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}