The smiles and joy seen in pictures of seven members of the Iranian women’s football team who originally sought asylum in Australia only tell part of the story.
The complexity of the situation was further highlighted when one of the seven changed her mind today and decided to return to Iran.
There is no black-and-white picture here. And as details continue to emerge, what seems clear is that many of those who chose to remain or leave did so with mixed emotions.
I feel like this is being deliberately overblown, they didn’t even share the full message.
“They” could refer to anyone without the context.
The reason I felt like mentioning this is because Iran is waterlogged in a war at the moment, so they actually started releasing political prisoners because they need public support. There’d be very little reason to go after the soccer team, regardless of their reasoning not to sing their national anthem.
I think the squad size is also like 23 people, so that’s still 17 that didn’t opt to stay.
They tried to defect. Even if allowed to live short term, they would be killed eventually.
Defect implies help the enemy. They just claimed asylum for safety. I don’t think the regime will be happy with them but it’s not the same.