Silence on the Dealing with Those Responsible for the Downing of the Ukrainian Plane; Dealing with Protesters: 30 Arrested
While there has been no action taken against the decision-making authorities in the case after the Revolutionary Guards admitted to targeting the Ukrainian passenger plane, the Iranian judiciary has announced the arrest of 30 protesters.
Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili announced in a meeting with reporters on Tuesday, January 14, that 30 people have been arrested in recent protests.
This claim by the judicial authority came just one day after Ibrahim Raisi's warning, saying that security forces would not tolerate the Reds crossing the line.
This threat by the head of Iran's judiciary comes at a time when domestic and foreign criticism and the anger of the people, who have been protesting since the IRGC admitted to targeting the passenger plane, have focused on the cover-up, lies, and mismanagement of the Islamic Republic's officials.
At the same time as widespread protests in Iran, President Trump warned Iranian officials about the Islamic Republic's treatment of protesters, saying, "We must not see another killing of protesters and a shutdown of Iran's internet."
The General Staff of the Armed Forces finally announced on Saturday that the Ukrainian passenger plane was shot down by a self-defense missile. This is despite the fact that the United States, Britain, and Canada had been emphasizing this issue for two days and Islamic Republic officials had denied it.
Over the past two days, various cities in Iran have witnessed public protests against the shooting down of a Ukrainian passenger plane, killing 176 people on board, including dozens of Iranian-Canadian citizens. Protesters chanted harsh slogans against the authorities' lies and demanded the resignation of Ayatollah Khamenei, the commander-in-chief of the Iranian armed forces.
These protests prompted a response from US officials, with President Trump telling Iranian leaders not to kill protesters.
Previously, the US Secretary of State, by releasing a video of the protests of the Iranian people following the admission of the scandal of the downing of a passenger plane by a IRGC missile, emphasized that the United States stands with the Iranian people.
"The voice of the Iranian people is clear," Mike Pompeo wrote on Twitter on Saturday, January 11. "They are fed up with the regime's lies, corruption, incompetence, and brutality of the IRGC under the command of Khamenei's thuggish dictatorship."
Source: Voice of America
