Paris: Iranian authorities on Thursday gave the nationwide women’s football group a hero’s welcome after their return to the Islamic republic from Australia where some had made and then withdrawn asylum claims, amid accusations Iran had forced their households.
Six gamers and one backroom group member who travelled to Australia for the Females’s Asian Cup sought asylum earlier this month after they sparked criticism from hardliners in Iran for failing to relate the nationwide anthem sooner than their first match.
5 of them later modified their minds and returned dwelling along with the leisure of the group, together with captain Zahra Ghanbari, with their fate sparking international diagram back amid the warfare in opposition to Israel and the United States.
Activists procure accused Iranian authorities of pressuring the women’s households, together with summoning their fogeys for interrogations, while Tehran has alleged that Australia sought to power the athletes to defect.
Diverse thousand of us, many conserving Iranian flags, grew to develop into out for the welcome ceremony on Thursday night in Valiasr Sq. in central Tehran where a form of expert-authorities rallies procure taken station in contemporary weeks, dispute TV photography confirmed.
“My Choice. My Homeland,” be taught a slogan on a large billboard on the sq. that confirmed the gamers of their nationwide kit and main hijabs saluting the Iranian flag.
Flanked by the group contributors, Iranian football federation president Mehdi Taj talked about on the stage that “what is certain is that these athletes are loyal to the homeland, flag, leader and revolution.”
Iranian authorities spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani, one in all basically the most high-profile women in Iranian politics, instructed the group contributors: “All Iranians were waiting for you; welcome to Iran.”
‘Threatening their households’
As onlookers cheered the gamers, huge AI-generated photography of the women were projected on a show conceal exhibiting them pledging loyalty to the Iranian flag in opposition to a background of Iranian nationwide landmarks.
Two squad contributors procure remained in Australia, nevertheless the leisure of the group, together with the five a form of women who initially applied for asylum, arrived support in Iran on Wednesday after a prolonged crawl dwelling by draw of Malaysia, Oman and Turkey.
Activists procure accused Iranian authorities of pressuring these five women into altering their minds by intelligence brokers inserting rigidity on their households at dwelling.
“The regime in Iran started threatening their families and basically took their families hostage. Because of that, they were forced to withdraw their asylum and go back to Iran,” Shiva Amini, a previous Iranian international who now lives in exile and campaigns on women’s rights, wrote on social media.
Nonetheless Farideh Shojaei, an Iranian football respectable who travelled to Australia, talked about that the gamers had been offered “houses, cars, money, promises of contracts with professional clubs, as well as humanitarian visas”.
“Fortunately, the members of our team valued their national identity above all else and turned these offers down,” she instructed Iranian media.
Earlier than their opening sport the Iranian group fell nonetheless as the nationwide anthem played though they later sang it in subsequent suits. An Iranian dispute TV presenter branded the gamers “wartime traitors”.
A central feature of the welcome ceremony in Tehran changed into singing the nationwide anthem of the Islamic republic, with gamers and officers joining in.
