US President Donald Trump joined a growing chorus of people on Monday calling for Australia to protect the visiting Iranian women’s football team, whose players refused to sing the national anthem while playing there during the Middle East war.
The gesture ahead of the team’s Asian Cup match against South Korea last week was widely seen as an act of defiance against the Islamic republic just two days after the United States and Israel attacked it.
The son of Iran’s late shah, US-based Reza Pahlavi, warned on Monday that the refusal to sing the anthem could have “dire consequences”, and urged Australia to offer the team protection.
Trump weighed in later, pressing Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to “give ASYLUM” to the team and adding: “The US will take them if you won’t.”
“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,” the US leader said on his Truth Social network.
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.
“The members of the Iranian Women’s National Football Team are under significant pressure and ongoing threat from the Islamic Republic,” he said on social media.
“I call on the Australian government to ensure their safety and give them any and all needed support.”
Politicians, human rights activists and even “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling have also called for the team to be offered official protection.
“Please, protect these young women,” Rowling said in a post on social media.
Source: Insider Paper
