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Iran Protests Rage Over Downed Jet, as Other Nations Seek Redress Iran Protesters Rage Over Downed Jet, as Lawmakers Demand Accountability
(about 3 hours later)
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Protesters and riot police faced off in at least two cities in Iran on Monday, a third day of angry demonstrations at the country’s leaders after the government acknowledged having shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane, killing 176 people. Widespread anger over the Iranian government for shooting down a passenger plane and then misleading the public about it simmered for a third day on Monday, with the police and protesters facing off in at least two cities and increasing demands from lawmakers for accountability.
The protests are the most recent spillover from escalating regional tensions between the United States and Iran that built up to President Trump’s decision to kill a high-ranking Iranian general, and Iran’s firing missiles at United States forces in Iraq in response. After days of denials, Iran acknowledged Saturday that it had mistakenly shot down the Ukrainian airliner plane, killing 176 people.
After days of denials, Iran acknowledged early on Saturday that it had shot down the Ukraine International Airlines flight on Wednesday, blaming the attack on human error. But the government’s obfuscation has angered many Iranians, already squeezed by poor economic conditions exacerbated by United States sanctions, and some took to the streets soon after. A government spokesman, Ali Rabeei, said Monday that Iranian officials had not lied to the public when it insisted the plane crashed because of mechanical problems, but was providing the limited information it had. He said that President Hassan Rouhani had learned that missiles were fired at the plane only on Friday, two days after it crashed near the Tehran airport.
Videos from inside Iran shared on social media on Monday showed university students in Isfahan and the capital, Tehran, chanting against the country’s clerical rulers while riot police deployed nearby. Demands for government resignations spread Monday from hard-liners, who support Iran’s clerical government and called for officials to step down over the weekend, to members of the more moderate reformist parties, Mr. Rouhani’s base.
The extent of the protests and the amount of violence used to try to stop them were hard to assess because of tight restrictions on social media and the news media inside the country. Videos from previous days have shown protesters carrying off bleeding comrades while gunshots echoed in the background. Bahram Parsaie, a prominent lawmaker from Shiraz, said that it was not enough for Mr. Rouhani and his government to issue statements and that they needed to resign. He warned that if the president and his cabinet were not transparent with the public, Parliament would take legal action against them.
Ali Shakouri Rad, the head of a reformist political party, said the growing rift between the public and the clerical government had become insurmountable. “Covering up the mistake of downing the passenger jet with missiles was throwing acid at the image of the Islamic Republic,” he said on Twitter.
In a sign of the tensions between Iran’s clerical rulers and the elected officials, the government said Monday that it had disqualified 90 current lawmakers from running for re-election, Iranian official news media reported. The lawmakers, mostly members of reformist and centrist factions, account for roughly a third of the 290-member Parliament.
Several leading reformist politicians responded by calling for a boycott of the parliamentary election next month.
The over how the plane crash was handled also spread to the official news media on Monday, with several prominent state television and radio hosts quitting their jobs, saying they could no longer lie for the government.
Gelare Jabbari, the popular host of state TV’s Channel Two programs, changed her profile picture on Instagram to black and posted a public apology.
“It was very hard for me to believe the murdering of my countrymen,” she wrote. “Forgive me for believing it too late. I apologize for lying to you on TV for 13 years.”
The journalists’ union for the province of Tehran also issued a public apology for helping spread the government’s misinformation about the cause of the crash.
“We are currently holding a funeral service for public trust,” the statement said. “The first coffins are for state broadcast company and all media and websites.”
The union called on all Iranian journalists to no longer “amplify the cover-ups of officials” and to conduct their reporting with skepticism and independent investigations.
State television, however, continued to play down the mistaken downing of the plane, with one anchor saying “it was nothing compared to the main event” — the Iranian missile attack on American forces in Iraq hours earlier.
The Iranian attack, which caused moderate damage but killed no one, was conducted in retaliation for the American killing of Iran’s top military leader in a drone attack on Jan. 3.
Just hours later, a Ukraine International Airlines flight was taking off from Tehran before dawn on Wednesday, and Iranian forces were on high alert for an American counterattack. An Iranian crew, confusing the jet for an attacking craft, fired an antiaircraft missile at it about three minutes after it took off.
On Monday, the government closed the popular reformist news website Entekhab for publishing false rumors over the weekend that Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of National Security Council, had resigned.
Videos from inside Iran shared on social media on Monday showed university students in Isfahan and the capital, Tehran, chanting against the country’s clerical rulers while riot police officers were deployed nearby.
Thousands of students gathered at Iran’s elite technical university, Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, 14 of whose recent graduates died when the plane was shot down. Some lashed out our Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“We want transparency,” said one student, addressing the crowd. “This country has not had transparency for years. You have lied to us. the state broadcast company has lied to us. You think we are all stupid. The supreme leader must answer to us about the country’s problems. Mr. Khamenei, why are you lying?”
The crowd cheered.
A group of over 30 artists, filmmakers and actors issued a joint statement on Monday saying they would not participate in the government-sponsored Fajr competition, Iran’s equivalent of the Oscars.
One of the signatories, the well-known filmmaker Rakhshan Bani Etemad, was briefly detained and interrogated for several hours after she called for a nationwide vigil for the victims of the crash.
There were no reports of violence in the protests on Monday, as there had been over the weekend, when there were videos of protesters carrying off bleeding comrades as gunshots echoed in the background.
The authorities in Iran denied that security forces had opened fire.The authorities in Iran denied that security forces had opened fire.
“At protests, police absolutely did not shoot because the capital’s police officers have been given orders to show restraint,” Hossein Rahimi, the head of Tehran’s police, said on Monday, according to state-run news media.
[Read: Iran’s only female Olympic medalist has defected from the country over “lies” and “injustice.”]
Late Sunday, Mr. Trump warned Iran not to target the demonstrators. Framing himself as a supporter of the media, which in other circumstances he has frequently disparaged, Mr. Trump exhorted Iran’s leaders to allow unfettered reporting.Late Sunday, Mr. Trump warned Iran not to target the demonstrators. Framing himself as a supporter of the media, which in other circumstances he has frequently disparaged, Mr. Trump exhorted Iran’s leaders to allow unfettered reporting.
“To the leaders of Iran — DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS,” he wrote on Twitter. “Thousands have already been killed or imprisoned by you, and the World is watching. More importantly, the USA is watching. Turn your internet back on and let reporters roam free! Stop the killing of your great Iranian people!”“To the leaders of Iran — DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS,” he wrote on Twitter. “Thousands have already been killed or imprisoned by you, and the World is watching. More importantly, the USA is watching. Turn your internet back on and let reporters roam free! Stop the killing of your great Iranian people!”
The Ukrainian plane took off from Tehran on a flight to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, before dawn on Wednesday, and barely two minutes later it was struck by an anti-aircraft missile fired by an Iranian crew. Iranian forces had fired missiles at American forces in Iraq hours earlier, and were on the alert for retaliation by the United States.
In addition to the domestic outrage, Iran may also face demands for compensation from nations whose citizens were killed on the plane, Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko of Ukraine told Reuters on Monday in an interview in Singapore.In addition to the domestic outrage, Iran may also face demands for compensation from nations whose citizens were killed on the plane, Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko of Ukraine told Reuters on Monday in an interview in Singapore.
“We have created this group of foreign ministers from the grieving nations. On Jan. 16, we will meet in person in London to discuss the ways, including legal, how we are following this up, how we are prosecuting them,” Mr. Prystaiko said, referring to the Iranians. Foreign ministers from five nations will meet in London on Thursday to discuss legal action, he said. The participants will include Canada, which lost 57 citizens, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Sweden and another country he did not identify.
The talks would include five nations, he said: Canada, which lost 57 citizens, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Sweden and another country he did not identify. Mr. Prystaiko said Tehran had agreed to hand over the jet’s black boxes for analysis, but had yet to set a date to do so.
They and other nations have pushed for greater international involvement in the investigation of how the crash happened, and Mr. Prystaiko said Tehran had agreed to hand over the jet’s black boxes for analysis, but had yet to set a date to do so.
Mr. Prystaiko separately told the BBC in an interview broadcast Monday that President Hassan Rouhani of Iran had accepted full responsibility for the crash, without trying to shift the blame onto the United States for escalating overall tensions in the region.
“At least at the presidential level, nothing of this nonsense was mentioned,” Mr. Prystaiko said, describing Mr. Rouhani’s phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Saturday. “He tried to do his best to explain that it was human error, that no one who is to be punished will escape the punishment.”
Tensions between the United States and Iran have soared since 2018, when Mr. Trump pulled the United States out of an international agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program and imposed the first in a series of sanctions on Iran to punish it for what his administration sees as its destabilizing activities across the Middle East.Tensions between the United States and Iran have soared since 2018, when Mr. Trump pulled the United States out of an international agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program and imposed the first in a series of sanctions on Iran to punish it for what his administration sees as its destabilizing activities across the Middle East.
After a number of attacks on United States assets and allies in the Middle East in recent months, Mr. Trump ordered the killing on Jan. 3 of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds force. He headed Iran’s efforts to support and direct allied militias in the region. After a number of attacks on United States assets and allies in the Middle East in recent months, Mr. Trump ordered the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds force. He headed Iran’s efforts to direct allied militias in the region.
Those militias include an Iraqi group that fired rockets at a military base in Iraq late last month, killing one American contractor. United States forces retaliated against militia bases, killing more than two dozen fighters, and militias responded by surrounding the American Embassy compound in Baghdad, breaching its perimeter wall, setting fires and throwing rocks. Those militias include an Iraqi group that the United States accused of firing rockets at a military base in Iraq late last month, killing one American contractor. United States forces retaliated against militia bases, killing more than two dozen fighters, and militias responded by surrounding the American Embassy compound in Baghdad, breaching its perimeter wall, setting fires and throwing rocks.
The killing of General Suleimani in a drone strike at the Baghdad airport raised fears that Iran or its network of allies across the Middle East would respond against the United States and its allies, possibly igniting a regional war.The killing of General Suleimani in a drone strike at the Baghdad airport raised fears that Iran or its network of allies across the Middle East would respond against the United States and its allies, possibly igniting a regional war.
On Wednesday, Iran responded by firing a barrage of missiles at two military bases in Iraq that host United States forces, inflicting some damage but killing no one. The Ukrainian jet crashed after being struck in the air by an Iranian missile a few hours later.
Anton Troianovski contributed reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine.Anton Troianovski contributed reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine.