Father of Ukrainian Plane Crash Victim: Airport Officials Prevented Victim Families from Leaving Iran
Hamed Esmaeilion, an Iranian-Canadian writer and dentist who lost his wife and daughter in the downing of the Ukrainian plane by the Revolutionary Guards, announced in a Facebook post that Tehran airport officials did not allow family members of the victims to leave the country.
Hamed Esmaeilion wrote on his Facebook page on Monday evening, Bahman 7th, addressing the Imam Khomeini Airport officials: “Let the family members leave the country easily to attend the funeral. Moreover, it is none of your business why the Canadian government easily issued visas within a few hours.”
Earlier, Javad Soleimani, husband of Elnaz Nabiyi, one of the victims of the Ukrainian plane crash, reported being summoned and threatened by the Zanjan Intelligence Department on charges of “insulting Khamenei’s representatives” and said he was forced to leave Iran.
In an Instagram post, he wrote that “the morning after the mourning ceremony,” the Zanjan Intelligence Department summoned him for “insulting Khamenei’s representatives and Instagram posts.”
Published images from the funeral ceremony of the plane crash victims in Iran also show that authorities, by erecting barriers, barely allowed families to approach the burial site of their loved ones and turned the ceremony into a state funeral.
Although the Islamic Republic admitted to shooting down the Ukrainian plane under international pressure, the principal perpetrators of the plane downing have not yet been identified or prosecuted. The father of one of the Ukrainian plane crash victims criticized the non-prosecution of those responsible for firing at the passenger plane during his son’s funeral ceremony at a mosque.
The Islamic Republic has also taken security measures against those protesting the Revolutionary Guards’ shooting of the passenger plane, and according to official statistics, at least 30 people have been arrested in this regard.
On the morning of Wednesday, Dey 18th, a Boeing 737 passenger aircraft of Ukraine International Airlines with 176 passengers, after taking off from Imam Khomeini International Airport in the suburbs of Tehran, was shot down by the air defense of the Revolutionary Guards. After several days of insistence by Iranian officials, who claimed the plane crashed due to a technical fault, the Guards finally announced that they had mistakenly targeted the aircraft.
Source: Voice of America
