Downing of Ukrainian Plane by IRGC; Continued Protests in Iran

One day after the release of a statement by the General Staff of the Iranian Islamic Republic’s Armed Forces confirming the downing of a passenger aircraft of Ukraine International Airlines due to a missile strike by the IRGC Air Defense System, once again a number of Iranian citizens gathered and staged protests.

According to ISNA news agency, on Sunday, December 22 (January 12), memorial ceremonies were held in several higher education centers in the capital, including Beheshti, Allameh Tabatabai, and Khajeh Nasir universities, for the victims of the Ukrainian plane crash, accompanied by slogans protesting the “negligence” of officials.

Authorities of the Islamic Republic, after three days of deceiving public opinion, cover-ups, and denying reports about the targeting of Ukraine International Airlines’ passenger aircraft, finally admitted that the plane crashed shortly after taking off from “Imam Khomeini” airport en route to Kyiv due to a missile impact, killing all 176 passengers on board.

The majority of victims of this incident were Iranian and Canadian citizens. Some of the passengers on this flight were graduates of major Tehran universities, and some of them intended to travel to their residence and studies in Canada via another flight after stopping in Kyiv.

Ali Reza Dashtabi, head of student media at Beheshti University, says the number of participants in the memorial ceremony held on Sunday afternoon at this university is estimated to be up to a thousand people, and this level of attendance at such a ceremony is “unprecedented.”

Speaking about the ceremony, he said: “The question of students in today’s gathering was why the officials did not announce the cause of the tragic fall of the Ukrainian plane from the very beginning, and the students were upset about this.”

In some educational centers, officials attempted to control students’ protest movements, which began on Saturday and spread outside universities, by holding memorial ceremonies.

At Allameh Tabatabai University, the cultural deputy held a ceremony, but a large number of students gathered in the university courtyard and chanted slogans against government officials. Some reports indicate an attack by security forces on students of this university.

Denial of Security Forces Entering Allameh University

The public relations director of Allameh Tabatabai University confirms the gathering of protesting students in the university courtyard but denies the entry of security agents and told ISNA: “In no way did security forces enter the university, and police and security forces were stationed outside the university, and this gathering ended without any violence.”

Despite numerous reports and evidence confirming the likelihood of a missile hitting the plane, all senior political and military officials of the Islamic Republic continued to repeat their claim about a technical defect and fire in one of the aircraft engines until Saturday morning.

Ali Abedzadeh, head of the Civil Aviation Organization, called the crash resulting from a missile impact from the defense system “impossible” in a television program, and Hossein Ashna, cultural advisor to President Hassan Rouhani, called reports in this regard “psychological warfare” and threatened Iranian journalists outside the country not to engage in it.

On Wednesday, some American media and politicians such as the prime ministers of Canada and Britain, citing satellite data provided by the US Department of Defense (Pentagon), assessed the likelihood of an “unintentional” impact of IRGC missiles with Ukraine International Airlines’ passenger aircraft as credible.

Ali Rabiei, government spokesman, called these reports a “completely calculated and well-known method in psychological operations” and wrote: “In the future, when it becomes clear that this false claim is devoid of truth, no one will take responsibility for this great lie.”

Did They Lie to the Government Spokesman?

On Sunday, the Civil Aviation Organization, Hossein Ashna, and Rabiei apologized for these statements, which in a way constituted complicity in deceiving public opinion. Ashna wrote in a tweet message that he was deceived, and Abbas Abdi, a political activist, wrote in the newspaper Etemaad quoting Rabiei that they lied to him.

These lies and cover-ups became more apparent when Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, on Saturday in a television interview took responsibility for the incident on Wednesday morning and said that the operator of the IRGC’s air defense system “mistakenly identified” the Ukrainian passenger aircraft as a cruise missile and fired at it.

The IRGC Aerospace Force commander also said that on the same Wednesday morning, when he became aware of the truth of the matter, he reported the issue to higher authorities. These higher authorities are the General Staff of the Armed Forces, whose appointee is the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic.

Slogans Against Khamenei as the Main Responsible Party

Apparently due to the direct responsibility that the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces bears in this incident, in the protests held on Saturday and repeated on Sunday in Tehran and some other cities, most of the slogans were directed against Khamenei personally.

Hrana news agency, affiliated with a group of human rights activists in Iran, published a video on Twitter that, according to the agency, shows the protest movement of students at Beheshti University.

A number of Iranian artists had called on residents of Tehran and other Iranian cities to gather on Sunday at six o’clock in the afternoon in the freedom squares of their cities in solidarity with the survivors of the victims of the downed Ukraine International Airlines plane.

Some of these artists, including filmmaker Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, announced later that they were withdrawing their invitation due to threats and pressure from security agents. Nevertheless, some gathered in Azadi Square in Tehran and some other cities and chanted slogans against the government. ILNA news agency reported the number of people present in Azadi Square in Tehran as between two to three thousand.

Many videos have been posted on social networks that apparently show protest gatherings in the streets around Azadi Square in Tehran and some other cities, such as Yazd, Isfahan, Rasht, Shiraz, Mashhad, Babol, Semnan, Kermanshah, Arak, and others.

Some of the slogans heard in these videos include: “Supreme Commander, resign, resign,” “Shame on us, shame on us, shame on our leader,” “We didn’t give up anyone to compromise, we shouldn’t praise a killer leader,” “Death to the principle of absolute guardianship of the jurist,” “IRGC commits crimes, the leader supports them.”

It is reported that in some parts of Tehran and some cities, security agents threw tear gas at protesters, and in some cases, plainclothes forces attacked the demonstrators.

Fars news agency, close to security forces and IRGC, had previously claimed that Khamenei was not aware of the truth of what happened on Wednesday morning until Friday.

Mehdi Karroubi, a representative protesting the announced results of the 2009 elections who has been under house arrest without a court order for ten years, wrote an open letter to the leader of the Islamic Republic stating that he “undoubtedly” lacks any of the conditions and qualifications required by the constitution for assuming this position.

Khamenei; Accomplice in Deception or Uninformed Commander?

He tells Khamenei that if he was aware of the truth of the missile impact on the passenger aircraft from Wednesday morning, it means that “with knowledge of the matter, he allowed military, security, and propaganda officials to deceive the people.”

Karroubi further wrote: “And if, as they say, you were not aware of this tragedy and did not pursue the discovery of the truth, then tell us what kind of supreme commander of the armed forces are you that they play you and the country this way.”

According to some parliamentarians and according to some other evidence, until Friday, the president, Hassan Rouhani, and even Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, were not aware of the truth of the downing of the Ukrainian plane.

If this is true, it shows that the “hidden government” with the backing of absolute guardianship of the jurist does not value the “elected government” very much, let alone citizens and public opinion. Apparently on this basis, the IRGC members continue to contradict themselves; on Saturday, the commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force said in front of the camera and in front of the people that he had learned of the matter on Wednesday morning and reported it to his superiors; the commander of the IRGC, Hossein Salami, on Sunday tells the “representatives elected by the people” in parliament that he “became certain” on Wednesday evening of the plane being targeted by a missile.