Human Rights Watch: Families of Ukrainian Plane Crash Victims Under Pressure from Iranian Government
Human Rights Watch says that since the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shot down the Ukrainian plane in December 2019, the families of the victims of this flight have been systematically subjected to harassment and persecution by Iranian government officials.
The international organization, which published a report on this matter on Thursday, June 26, 2020, added that governments involved in the investigation of Flight 752 should support and protect the family members of victims in their pursuit of justice and accountability.
The Ukrainian aircraft with flight number PS752 was shot down on December 8, 2019, by at least two missiles from the IRGC air defense system, killing all 176 passengers and crew aboard, the majority of whom were Iranian and Iranian-Canadian dual nationals. Citizens (including dual nationals) from Afghanistan, Britain, Germany, Sweden, and Ukraine were also killed in the incident.
Michael Page, Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division, said that “the IRGC killed 176 people without any accountability, and now Iran’s brutal security agencies are harassing the victims’ family members to destroy any hope for justice.”
He added: “Instead of trying to rebuild public trust through a transparent investigation and compensating families, officials are once again trying to silence efforts to hold them accountable.”
Human Rights Watch reported that between October 2020 and January 2021, it spoke with 31 family members of the victims and people aware of how officials treated the families. The investigation shows that the security agencies of the Islamic Republic have “arbitrarily” carried out arrests, summonses, interrogations accompanied by harassment, torture, and mistreatment of the bereaved families during this period.
These agencies have also refused to return the victims’ belongings to their survivors and have openly sought to confiscate the funeral and memorial ceremonies of the victims.
On June 1, 2021, a report was released stating that the Canadian government has appointed Payam Akhavan, a human rights lawyer and former prosecutor at the International Court of Justice, as its senior advisor on the Flight 752 case.
On May 2, 2021, the Association of Families of Ukrainian Plane Crash Victims stated in an announcement that Iran’s military prosecutor has issued a decision not to prosecute high-ranking government officials in this case. According to the association, the military prosecutor has only issued a summons for “ten unnamed individuals,” and “the families’ lawyers’ attempts to review the case file, learn about the expertise and interrogations, hear the defendants’ statements, and find their names have come to nothing.”
Multiple reports have been published about the actions of the Islamic Republic’s security forces to intimidate the families of Flight 752 victims. Canada’s intelligence and security service also noted in its annual report a few weeks earlier that it has “credible reports” of harassment and intimidation of families and relatives of victims in Canada.
The Ontario Superior Court in Canada announced on Thursday, May 20, 2021, in a ruling that the downing of the Ukrainian aircraft by the IRGC was an “intentional” and “terrorist” act.
This is while the Islamic Republic initially denied downing the plane and, when finally forced to acknowledge under international pressure that the aircraft was downed by missiles from the IRGC’s defense system, claimed the reason was “human error.”
The downing of Flight 752 occurred hours after Iran’s missile attack on a U.S. military base in Iraq, an attack in response to the killing of Qasem Soleimani, the former commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, in a U.S. drone strike.
Source: Radio Farda
