Assistant Immigration Minister Matt Thistlethwaite described the ladies’s plight in Australia as a “very advanced scenario”.
“We’ve been working very, very intently with them, however clearly this can be a very advanced scenario. These are deeply private choices, and the federal government respects the selections of those who have chosen to return. And we proceed to supply assist to the 2 which can be remaining,” Thistlethwaite advised Sky Information tv.
“They’re being given all of the assist of the Australian authorities and certainly the diaspora group to stay right here and settle in Australia,” he added.
Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a political scientist at Melbourne’s Macquarie College who spent greater than two years in Iranian prisons on spying costs from 2018 to 2020, mentioned “profitable the propaganda struggle” had overshadowed the ladies’s welfare.
“The excessive stakes made the Iranian regime sit up and listen and attempt to power their hand in response, in my opinion,” Moore-Gilbert advised the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“But it surely wasn’t essentially to be identified that this story would blow up and turn out to be the worldwide story that it did. However I do suppose on this case, had these ladies quietly sought asylum with out that publicity round them, it’s attainable that the Islamic Republic officers may need, as they’ve within the instances of different Iranian sports activities individuals up to now who’ve defected … merely allowed that to occur,” she added.
Iran’s Tasnim Information Company mentioned after the three left Australia on Saturday and that they have been “returning to the nice and cozy embrace of their household and homeland”.
Issues concerning the group’s security in Iran heightened when the gamers didn’t sing the Iranian nationwide anthem earlier than their first match.
The Australian authorities was urged to assist the ladies by Iranian teams in Australia and by Trump.
