Protest rally against ICAO's silence on Ukrainian plane incident

Hamed Esmailiyon, a spokesman for the Association of Families of Flight 752 Victims, who lost his wife and daughter in the plane crash, accused international organizations of not recognizing the nature and approaches of the Islamic Republic in a speech at the gathering. He said, “We Iranian-Canadians say that these organizations and governments do not know the Islamic Republic government because we do. No one knows that government better than us, who have borne the yoke of this tyrant for 42 years. We are the ones who know that they are capable of any crime.” Noting that the Islamic Republic is ruled not by “law and moral conscience, scientific competence and technical analysis,” but by “ideology and oppression,” Esmailiyon criticized ICAO for ignoring these issues.

ICAO responded to the protest, tweeting to thank the PS752 Families Association for “actively representing the victims of this tragic event.”

“The trial of the defendants begins in Tehran”

Hours before the Toronto rally, the head of the Armed Forces Judicial Organization in Iran claimed that “the lawyers in the case have been provided with the opportunity to study the Ukrainian plane crash case.”

According to ISNA, on the sidelines of the farewell and introduction ceremony of the head of the Judicial Organization of the Kurdistan Armed Forces and in front of reporters, Shukrollah Bahrami announced that "the case of 10 defendants in the Ukrainian plane crash is currently under investigation" and that the court hearings for these defendants have begun.

A week ago, the Canadian government submitted an investigative report on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' air defense missile attack on Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752, in which it criticized the Islamic Republic's lack of transparent reporting, given that the country's authorities had access to all documents and evidence.

This report holds the Iranian government responsible for the missile attack on the aforementioned plane due to its disregard for human life.

Part of the report states that there is no evidence that this attack was intentional or that there was a prior plan for this attack, while emphasizing that the "unintentional" nature of the missile attack on the Ukrainian passenger plane does not absolve the Iranian government of responsibility.

Canada has rejected Iran's legal explanation and its claim that the missile attack was aimed at "radar malfunction" and "operator error" of air defenses, and believes that the responsibility for the attack is heavier than blaming a few low-ranking individuals.

Iran has called the Canadian government's report "technically baseless and therefore unacceptable."

This is while, in late June, Canada, Sweden, Ukraine, and Britain, which lost their citizens in the Revolutionary Guards' missile attack on the Ukrainian passenger plane, issued a statement calling Iran's final report "covert" and describing the actions and statements of Iranian officials as "violations of international law."

A Ukrainian Airlines passenger plane was shot down in January 2019 by two IRGC air defense missiles, killing all 176 people on board.