Most victims of Ukrainian plane crash identified
The number of people killed in the plane crash near Tehran has reached 100. Several people have been arrested in connection with the tragedy. According to a news agency, people are mourning and are even less likely to go to the cinema.
About a week after an IRGC missile hit a Ukrainian passenger plane, killing 176 people, the consequences of this disaster are still at the top of the news in many media outlets and news agencies around the world.
A number of media outlets and political and social activists within the country have not forgotten this incident and are addressing its painful effects by publishing statements or reports on the matter.
A number of Iranian government agencies are also involved in the aftermath of the incident. On Tuesday, January 14, the head of Tehran's Criminal Affairs Prosecutor's Office announced that forensic medicine has so far identified 100 of the victims.
According to Mohammad Shahriari, the bodies of 30 of the victims have been handed over to their families. He said that the work of identifying the remaining victims will likely continue until the end of the week.
On Tuesday morning, Judge Shahriari said that the bodies of 61 of the victims had been prepared for delivery to their families.
Shahriari said in this regard: "A special effort was made to collect all the pieces left at the scene of the plane crash and to reconstruct the body, that is, to put the pieces of the bodies together to obtain a single body."
Declining cinema revenue
On Tuesday, the ILNA news agency reported that a study of film sales showed that between January 1 and 2, Iranian cinemas' revenue dropped by 50 percent.
The semi-official news agency quoted Mohammad Ghased Ashrafi, head of the Iranian Cinema Owners Association, as saying that after the killing of Qassem Soleimani by the US military and the downing of a passenger plane, "as well as the announcement of the culprit for this incident, an atmosphere was created in society that had a direct impact on cultural and artistic activities, especially the sales of cinema films."
Ashrafi told ILNA that after the news of Soleimani's killing was announced, cinema sales decreased, but "after the announcement of the culprit for the plane crash and after a few days of cinema closures, these sales dropped again, with about 30 percent of cinema sales falling compared to the previous week and before the incident."
Arrest of the “agents”
According to the spokesman for the Islamic Republic's Judiciary, the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces has formed special commissions to investigate the dimensions of the case of the downing of the passenger plane.
The judiciary's "Mizan" news agency quoted Gholamhossein Esmaili as saying: "Extensive investigations have been conducted and some people have been arrested."
President Rouhani has called the missile strike on the passenger plane "a very painful and unforgivable human error" and has called for the formation of "a special court with a high-ranking judge and several experts" to investigate its dimensions.
He emphasized: "The whole world is watching this court."
Source: DW
