Iran’s players have been labelled “wartime traitors” after choosing not to sing the national anthem ahead of their Women’s Asia Cup tournament opener amid calls for Australian government to provide immediate asylum and protection for the athletes.
When Iran faced South Korea in Robina on Monday, their players had stood motionless as an apparent silent protest against the Islamic Republic’s regime, two days after the US and Israel had begun a war against their country.
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After that match, Iran coach Marziyeh Jafari said her team had “so much concern” about their families at home as the conflict raged and that players felt “fully disconnected” from their loved ones.
“We are so happy that Iranian Australians here support us,” she told Australian media on Wednesday.
“Obviously, we have so much concern for our families and our loved ones and all other people inside our country, which we are fully disconnected from.
“Here, we are coming to play football professionally, and we will do our best to concentrate on the match ahead.”
Before Thursday’s defeat to Australia in the Women’s Asia Cup on the Gold Coast, all the Iranian players saluted and sang the anthem on Queensland’s Gold Coast, with suggestions they were instructed to do so.
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“It’s completely obvious that the Islamic Republic’s regime, and the security team which is with the players in Australia, forced them to sing and do the military salute,” Alireza Mohebbi, the Australia-based correspondent for Iran International TV, told ABC News.
ABC presenter Tracey Holmes tweeted: “Just like the men’s team at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, the women’s team from Iran are singing the national anthem ‘under instruction’ for game two, after refusing to sing in game one; not just singing, but saluting.”
In the match, they were easily beaten 4-0 by host nation Australia, who joined South Korea in the quarter-finals.
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In a video shared to Twitter, Iranian state TV presenter Mohammad Reza Shahbazi accused the national women’s football squad of “dishonour and betrayal” for their apparent silent protest, declaring they “must be dealt with”.
“Let me just say one thing: traitors during wartime must be dealt with more severely,” Shahbazi said, according to a social media translation.
“Anyone who takes a step against the country under war conditions must be dealt with more severely.
“Like this matter of our women’s football team not singing the national anthem, and that photo that was published and so on, which I won’t get into. These people must be dealt with more severely.
“This is no longer just a symbolic protest move or the like. In a war situation, in this state of affairs, where they strike and martyr students and seven-to-eight-year-old girls in schools, where they attack the neonatal ward of a hospital, where they hit stadiums.
“For you to go there and not sing the national anthem; this is the pinnacle of dishonour and lack of patriotism. Both the people and the officials should treat these individuals as wartime traitors, not as if they just had a protest or performed a symbolic act. The stigma of dishonour and betrayal must remain on their foreheads, and separately they must be dealt with properly.”
Elsewhere, political analyst Ali Bornaei warned the Australian government that the team’s lives were “in imminent danger”, acknowledging that treason was a capital offence punishable by death in Iran.
“These athletes face arbitrary detention and execution if forced to return,” Bornaei tweeted.
“I urgently call on the Australian government to provide immediate asylum and protection for these brave women. Australia must not allow them to be sent back to a regime that views a silent protest as a crime worthy of the gallows.”
Iran will next face the Philippines on the Gold Coast on Sunday.