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Three More Iranian Soccer Players Withdraw Bid for Asylum in Australia

Three More Iranian Soccer Players Withdraw Bid for Asylum in Australia

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Two additional Iranian female footballers and a member of their support staff have reportedly withdrawn asylum requests that were previously granted in Australia. Their initial claims were based on fears of punishment upon returning to Iran after the team refused to sing the national anthem at the Asian Cup.

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Tony Burke
Australian Government
1. Australians should be proud that it was in our country that these women experienced a nation presenting them with genuine choices and interacted with authorities seeking to help them.
2. The Australian government has done everything we could to make sure these women were provided with the chance for a safe future in Australia.
3. While the Australian government can ensure that opportunities are provided and communicated, we cannot remove the context in which the players are making these incredibly difficult decisions.
Jim Chalmers
Australian Government
1. I am worried about them. I can only imagine the pressure that they feel and how difficult these sorts of decisions would be for them.
Tasnim News Agency
1. Mona Hamoudi, Zahra Sarbali, and Zahra Meshkinkar, two players and a member of the technical staff of the Iranian women's national football team, have withdrawn their asylum application in Australia and are leaving for Malaysia to return to the warm embrace of their families and homeland.
2. After being in Malaysia and joining the other Iranian women's national football players, these three will travel to Tehran in the coming days to once again be in the warm embrace of their families and homeland.
Matt Thistlethwaite
Liberal Party
1. These are deeply personal decisions, and the government respects the decisions of those that have chosen to return. And we continue to offer support to the two that are remaining.
Kambiz Razmara
Australian-Iranian Society of Victoria
1. I'm surprised that they've decided to go, but I'm actually not surprised because I appreciate the pressures that they're experiencing.
2. They've had to make decisions at the spur of the moment with very little information and they've had to react to the circumstance.
Farhad Soheil
1. The first thing that came to my mind is definitely that they have been threatened, especially their family back home. It must be the main reason they're going back.
2. I'm pleased that there are still a number of these Iranian women who will be staying.
Nos Hosseini
1. Given how much publicity this story has received all over the world, it wouldn't surprise me if the Iranian regime and its agents, affiliates, and sympathisers would be keeping a close eye on the girls, or will keep a close eye on the girls in the near future when they start going about their lives.
Kylie Moore-Gilbert
Macquarie University
1. I do think in this case, had these woman quietly sought asylum without that publicity around them, it's possible that the Islamic Republic officials might have, as they have in the cases of other Iranian sportspeople in the past who've defected ... simply allowed that to happen.
2. The high stakes made the Iranian regime sit up and pay attention and try to force their hand in response, in my view.

Three More Iranian Soccer Players Withdraw Bid for Asylum in Australia

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