Iran On A Tightrope
"We are following your [Iranian protesters} protests closely, and are inspired by your courage."
"The government of Iran must allow human rights groups to monitor and report facts from the ground on the ongoing protests by the Iranian people."
"There can not be another massacre of peaceful protesters, nor an Internet shutdown. The world is watching."
U.S.President Donald J. Trump
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| ...Arash Khamooshi for The New YorkTimes |
The plane was flying in its normal direction without any error and everybody was doing their job correctly."
"If there was a mistake, it was made by one of our members."
"I wish I was dead. I accept all responsibility for this incident."
Gen.Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander, airspace unit, Revolutionary Guard Corps
"We expect Iran to assure its readiness for a full and open investigation, to bring those responsible to justice, to return the bodies of the victims, to pay compensation, and to make official apologies through diplomatic channels."
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky
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Ukraine would not hesitate, says its president, to "insist on a full admission of guilt" by Tehran. Absent pointing to what they claim to have been aggressive provocations by the United States. Absent suggestions that the Ukrainian pilots of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, a Boeing 737-800 having given the impression that it was veering off and descending as though becoming a threat.
"Even in the statement of Iran there is a hint that our crew was acting independently, or that it could have acted differently", pointed out Yevhenii Dykhne, the airline director. The plane took off as it normally would on such flights out of Iran, following the same departure routes as those of other airliners leaving the Tehran international airport that morning. Normal radio contact was maintained by the crew with the Tehran tower, following standard departure protocol for the airport.
Having reached an elevation of 6,000 feet, the tower instructed the pilots to make a slight northerly turn, and one of the pilots read back "turn and climb". The plane had been misidentified, according to General Hajizadeh, thought to be a cruise missile, and summarily shot down with a short-range missile -- oh wait -- likely two such missiles exploding near the plane.
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Leading the Ukrainian expert investigators to accuse Iran of recklessly permitting commercial flights at a time of security emergency, violating universally accepted processes. Along with mismanaging a post-crash investigation by bulldozing debris from the plane into great piles on the ground, failing to handle evidence with care, much less document them after minute examination. "Everything was done absolutely inappropriately", stated Oleksiy Danilov, the security official overseeing the crash inquiry for Ukraine.
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Ukraine's president's office posted photographs of shrapnel damage on the wreckage of the plane, along with a passport belonging to an Iranian-Canadian with half-inch-in-diameter piercings, consistent with the belief that shrapnel from a surface-to-air missile hit the plane. "Human error at time of crisis caused by U.S. adventurism led to disaster", wrote Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister.
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| Jan 12, 2020, local newspapers: “Apologize, Resign”, (ATTA KENARE / AFP) |
While Iran was expressing sentiments of sincerely abject remorse tinged liberally with self-exculpating accusations, Ukrainian aviation officials who had struggled since the crash to extract meaningful information from Iran about the truth of the situation, were indignant with frustration. In response to criticism that the airline should have aborted their flight out of Iran in light of regional tensions, airline officials counter-claimed it was Iran's responsibility to close airspace, intending to fire missiles.
The death of 176 people aboard the Ukrainian Airlines flight has activated protesters in Tehran and other Iranian cities to express their distrust of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In protest videos Iranians are heard to shout "Khamenei is a murderer!" while anti-riot police tear-gassed demonstrators as the situation turned increasingly violent. They too are not accepting the military version of the flight crew taking a sharp, unexpected turn bringing it close to a sensitive military base.
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| Iranians students demonstrate following a tribute for the victims of Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 in front of the Amirkabir University in the capital Tehran, on January 11, 2020 (Atta KENARE / AFP) |
"Death to Liars!" and "Death to the dictator!", Iranians shouted gathering in squares. "You have no shame!", the crowds chorused. Among them presumably many who had turned out to mourn the death of Al Quds IRGC Commander Maj.-Gen.Qassem Soleimani. That show of communal outrage now highlighting the deaths of innocent passengers on a Ukrainian airliner, mostly Iranian and Canadian.
Reports have been verified that live ammunition is being used to quell protests, that defenceless women were being shot in the legs.The Islamic Republic of Iran resorting to the kind of crowd control that it knows best as an effective deterrent to citizen civil disobedience.
Desperate to maintain 'order', and to keep the outside world out of its affairs. An outside world that is now keenly observing the out-of-control actions of a wholly dysfunctional theocracy whose population is itself awakening to the full distemper of its pious terrorist rulers.
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| People gather for a candlelight vigil to remember the victims of the Ukraine plane crash, at the gate of Amri Kabir University that some of the victims of the crash were former students of, in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 11, 2020 (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi) |
Labels: Canada, Crisis Politics, Iran, Mourning, Passengers, Protests, Ukraine, Ukraine Flight
posted by Pieface @ Monday, January 13, 2020
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