Protesters heap pressure on Iran
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the dictator”, directing their anger at the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“Apologise and resign,” Iran’s moderate Etemad daily wrote in a banner headline yesterday, saying the “people’s demand” was for those responsible for mishandling the plane crisis to quit.
The latest upsurge in anger adds to challenges facing the authorities, which launched a bloody crackdown in November to quell protests. The leadership is also struggling to keep the crippled economy afloat under rigorous US sanctions.
The Ukraine International Airlines plane was shot down minutes after taking off from Tehran on Wednesday, when Iranian forces were on alert for US reprisals following tit-for-tat strikes. Many of those on board were Iranians with dual citizenship, while 57 were holders of Canadian passports.
REVENGE
Iran’s president said it was a “disastrous mistake” and apologised. But a top Revolutionary Guards commander added to public fury when he said he had told the authorities on the same day as the crash that an Iranian missile had struck the plane.
The Guards’ top commander, Hossein Salami, said “we are more upset than anyone over the incident”, state media reported.
But others said Iran’s enemies, a term usually used to refer to Washington and its allies, were exploiting the incident.
“Iran’s enemies want to take revenge on the Guards for a military mistake,” said Ali Shirazi, Khamenei’s representative to the Quds Force, an elite Guards unit, state media reported.
After Saturday’s protests, US President Donald Trump said on Twitter: “There cannot be another massacre of peaceful protesters, nor an internet shutdown. The world is watching.”
He warned Iran against killing protesters yesterday. “To the leaders of Iran - DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS,” Trump tweeted, warning the world and “more importantly, the USA is watching.”
In an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” just before the tweet, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Trump was still willing to hold talks with Iran’s leaders.
Meanwhile, Britain said its ambassador in Iran had been briefly detained on Saturday night, which Iranian media said was because he was inciting protests. Some lawmakers said the envoy should leave Iran before being ejected, media reported.
Condemning the arrest, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Iran “can continue its march towards pariah status ... or take steps to de-escalate tensions and engage in a diplomatic path forwards.”
Iran summoned the UK envoy yesterday to complain about his attendance at an “illegal” rally in Tehran, Iranian Foreign Ministry’s website reported.
Iran’s hardline Basij militia staged a demonstration outside Britain’s embassy in Tehran yesterday demanding that it be closed, Iranian state media reported.
CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY
On January 3, a US drone strike in Iraq killed prominent Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, responsible for building up Iran’s network of regional proxy armies in Iraq and beyond. Tehran responded with missile strikes on US targets in Iraq.
No US soldiers were killed, but in the tense hours after that, the Ukrainian Boeing 737 was cleared to take off from Tehran airport and brought down by a missile fired by mistake.
“It is not a human error. This is a crime against humanity,” the son of the toppled shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, wrote on Twitter. “Khamenei and his regime should go.”
In the November protests, demonstrators had chanted slogans supporting him. His father died in exile in 1980.
Rallying to the establishment, Iranian lawmakers praised the elite force’s commanders for courage in admitting the error, according to Fars, a news agency seen as close to the Guards, a parallel military set up to protect the theocratic system.
Iranian officials sought to portray the plane disaster as a second blow to a mourning nation after Soleimani’s death in a US drone strike.
The commander’s funeral had prompted huge public gatherings, which the authorities described as a show of national unity. But the displays of emotion have been swiftly overshadowed and protesters on Saturday tore up pictures of the slain general.
Public fury at Iran’s authorities had grown as questions about the plane crash mounted. Iranians on social media asked why officials were busy fending off criticism from abroad rather than sympathising with grieving families. Others asked why the plane was allowed to take off at a time of high tension.