Source: Radio New Zealand
Iranian players saluting for the national anthem after being reprimanded for not singing in an earlier match. AFP
The New Zealand government may offer asylum to Iranian female football players in Australia who are likely to face persecution if they return to their home country.
The ABC reported that five players are currently being protected by police in Queensland after evading their team handlers at their Gold Coast accommodation.
The players, Fatemeh Pasandideh, Zahra Ghanbari, Zahra Sarbali, Atefeh Ramazanzadeh and Mona Hamoudi, refused to sing the national anthem before their opening match with South Korea at the Women’s Asian Cup earlier this month, the ABC said.
It said fears that the players would be targeted by the Iranian regime when they returned home have grown after Iranian state TV labelled them as “traitors,” the ABC said.
US President Donald Trump has urged Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to grant the whole team asylum.
In a post on his social media platform, Trump said: “Australia is making a terrible humanitarian mistake by allowing the Iran National Woman’s Soccer team to be forced back to Iran, where they will most likely be killed. Don’t do it, Mr. Prime Minister, give ASYLUM. The U.S. will take them if you won’t.”
Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour. RNZ / Mark Papalii
On First Up, Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour was asked if Australia should grant the players asylum – or if New Zealand should offer it.
Seymour said the Australian government had to make that decision based on law and it didn’t help “for their cousins across the ditch to start lobbying advice at them”.
But Seymour said it was a humanitarian question.
“Any sort-of lay person would sit there and say ‘do they have a well-founded fear of persecution of they return to their home country?’ I think the common sense answer is that they do.
“Would a country like Australia, or New Zealand for that matter, want to help people in that situation? I think the answer is we would, so let’s let the Australian government work through that question according to law as they have to.
“But I think any person looking at it would come to a pretty obvious answer in their heart and mind.”
Seymour said New Zealand has done something similar for refugees/aslyum seekers in the past.
“Perhaps the New Zealand government will do something like that today.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
