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Iran
IRGC chief Hossein Salami attends parliament in Tehran to field questions on the Ukrainian airliner disaster on January 12, 2020. Photo: Ehsan Naderipour / IRNA
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Several Iranian parliamentarians and councilors vented their frustration on Sunday over the way the authorities handled the Ukrainian airliner disaster, with one Tehran city councilor describing the establishment as overrun with “systemic corruption.”
“I am ashamed of you all…I hope the authorities…for once be responsible and take a brave decision to get the country out of this vicious and never-ending circle of lying, corruption and incompetence,” Bahareh Arvin, a member of Tehran’s city council posted on her Telegram channel on Sunday.
Iranian authorities and affiliated media misled the public for three days as evidence from Western intelligence agencies and videos from Iranian social media piled in, showing that an object had hit the Ukraine International Airlines flight 752 before it crashed on the outskirts of Tehran early on Wednesday, killing all 176 people on board.
The incident came several hours after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired over a dozen missiles at two US bases in Iraq. The IRGC insisted that the missile be fired at the exact time of night that Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani was slain by an American drone on January 3 near Baghdad airport.
Mechanical error was touted by officials as the cause of the disaster, a line parroted by media outlets affiliated with the establishment and by coerced, non-establishment affiliated outlets, to the dismay of the public.
One parliamentarian, Fatemeh Zolqadr, revealed on Sunday that a government official had gone to the national broadcaster during the three days of post-crash uncertainty and told the broadcaster without reservation that the cause of the disaster was a “mechanical failure”.
On Sunday two presenters from the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) resigned in protest over the way the corporation handled the disaster.
”This will have bad implications, people are shocked and angry,” Zolqadr said. “It would have been much better had they not said anything from the beginning, or at least said they were investigating.”
“It is clear that these friends [officials] were aware of the incident, so we need to ask - why insist on lying for a few days?” Gholamreza Haydari, a member of the parliament from Tehran said.
“Another issue is that we need to go after the highest chain of command that are responsible for this, because the poor person sitting behind the [missile] system only executes orders and the order comes from somewhere else.”
Iranian journalists living abroad continually questioned the official line presented by the IRGC and the government of President Hassan Rouhani. One official Hesameddin Ashena, an advisor to President Rouhani went so far as to threaten overseas Iranian journalists for taking part in “psychological warfare.
Gholamali Jafarzadeh, a parliamentarian from the northern city of Rasht, said “it is painful that some individuals have committed an offense in this country and they themselves decided on when to inform the public.”
“If it was not for the Western pressure, people’s attempts to convey information and the films that were published in the cyberspace, the Misters [officials] would not tell the truth,” Jafarzadeh asserted. “Saying they wished for death is only words, they must all resign and undoubtedly, they all have to stand trial.”
IRGC aerospace commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh took responsibility for the incident on Saturday.
“I wish I was dead,” The New York Times quoted him as saying. “I accept all responsibility for the incident,” he told reporters, unable to explain why Iranian airspace had not been closed hours after the strikes on military bases in Iraq.
On Sunday, IRGC chief Hossein Salami was questioned about the disaster by parliamentarians. “Most of the talks from the parliamentarians were to thank the IRGC and their efforts in providing security and there was little space to ask question,” parliamentary presidency representative Alireza Rahimi told the semi-official news agency ISNA.
“With regard to why the civilian flights were not halted that day, Salami said the responsibility of the civilian flights is not held by the IRGC. Therefore, the Guard has no duty to stop passenger flights,” Rahimi said.
It is not clear if the IRGC had suggested a halt to civilian airliner flights given the heightened tension and the fact that the Guards were on highest alert.
“This was a critical point but there are still many questions and ambiguities surrounding this,” Rahimi added.
Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Tehran and several other cities, chant against the establishment, the IRGC and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei the country’s ultimate decision maker, on Saturday evening. In Tehran, security forces used tear gas to disperse protesters and detained the British Ambassador for attending a vigil organized for the victims of the disaster, accusing him of “organizing and provoking” protesters.
“Very concerned about the temporary detention of the UK Ambassador @HMATehran in Iran. Full respect of the Vienna convention is a must. The EU calls for deescalation and space for diplomacy,” European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell Fontelles said on Twitter.
Ambassador Rob Macaire denied the accusations held against him and said he attended the vigil to pay respect to the victims, some of whom were British.
There were reports of students protesting and chanting against the IRGC in Tehran on Sunday morning, with the authorities deploying riot police in huge numbers across different universities.
For city council member Arvin, the handling of the Ukrainian airliner disaster has only compounded her weariness in battling the establishment to instigate change for her constituents.
“I entered Tehran city council two years ago with your votes, I had high hopes to try for a better life for you, but every day that passes, I become more hopeless in terms of taking a step in the existing structure in order to decrease the pain of the residents,” her Telegram post read.
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