Iran state media reports Tehran police chief denies claims that shots targeted protesters

Svetlana Ekimenko
Sputnik
Mon, 13 Jan 2020 21:02 UTC

© AP Photo / Ebrahim Noroozi

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, Saturday, Jan. 11, 2020.

Previously, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to warn the Iranian authorities against "killing protesters" and tweeted his support for the demonstrations sparked by Tehran's unintentional downing of a Ukrainian jet amid spiralling US-Iran tensions.

Police in the Iranian capital did not fire on protesters and officers have been under orders to show restraint, Tehran's police chief said in a statement carried by the state broadcaster's website on Monday.

"At protests, police absolutely did not shoot because the capital's police officers have been given orders to show restraint," said Hossein Rahimi, head of the Tehran police.

Videos posted on social media late on Sunday had recorded gunshots fired in the vicinity of protests and showed pools of blood. They also showed images of wounded people being carried by others in footage that Reuters reported could not be authenticated.

Scores of protesters gathered for a second day in Iran on Sunday chanting slogans against the authorities following the military's admission it had shot down a passenger plane in error.

Earlier, US President Donald Trump tweeted his support for Iranian protestors both in English and in Farsi.

On 12 January the US President tweeted:

​Before that, Trump took to Twitter to warn the Iranian authorities against "killing protesters".

A day earlier, media reports emerged of protests in Iran against those responsible for the deadly accidental downing of a Ukrainian Airlines Boeing 737 that killed all 176 people on board.

A peaceful gathering of hundreds of students outside the Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran to honour the victims of the fatal crash resulted in a rally, with protesters calling for the removal of senior government officials and demonstratively tearing the portrait of slain Gen. Qasem Soleimani, killed in a US targeted drone strike on 3 January.

The jetliner crashed early Wednesday, hours after Tehran launched missile attacks on two Iraqi military bases housing American troops as a retaliation for the US strike that killed Soleimani.

On Saturday, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps admitted to downing Ukrainian Airlines Boeing 737 by mistake, confusing it with a cruise missile. Iran had previously maintained the incident was caused by a technical error.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif condemned Washington's decision to kill Soleimani, calling it a triggering point that led to the tragedy.

Comment: RFE/RL, a mouthpiece for U.S. propaganda, published this pot-stirring piece:

Student-led demonstrations in Iran may pose an even larger threat to the authorities than the nationwide demonstrations in November over gasoline price hikes, analysts say.

The internal turmoil calmed with the U.S. killing of Major General Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike in Iraq on January 3. Anger over the assassination of the popular general, one of the most powerful men in the country, briefly united Iranians.

But a new wave of anti-government protests, this time spearheaded by angry youth, has exploded to life following the Iranian military's shooting down of a Ukraine International Airlines passenger plane near the capital, Tehran, on January 8 that killed all 176 people on board.

Iranian authorities have been accused of attempting a cover-up after originally denying their involvement in the disaster, only to admit they shot down the plane -- citing human error -- after three days of mounting international uproar.

"While there are issues of accountability bound up with those economic issues, the cover-up of the Ukraine plane crash strikes at the heart of this: can Iranians trust the regime, even the supreme leader, in matters of life and death?" said Scott Lucas, an Iran expert at Birmingham University in Britain and editor of the EA World View website.

'Death To The Dictator'

The student protests began on the evening of January 11 following a vigil held at a university in Tehran for the victims of the downing of the Ukrainian plane. The passengers included many young Iranians who were on their way to Canada, via Ukraine, for studies.

The vigils soon turned into anti-government demonstrations as young Iranians took to the streets and gathered in squares in the capital.

Protesters shouted, "Death to the liars," "You have no shame," and "Death to the dictator," a reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Images also showed some protesters ripping up photographs of Soleimani.

© VOA/ screenshot

Iranian riot police used tear gas on anti-government demonstrators on January 11 in Tehran.

Anti-government protests broke out for a third consecutive day on January 13. Rallies took place at Tehran's Sharif University of Technology and Amir Kabir University, with demonstrators chanting slogans such as "Clerics get lost," according to social-media posts.

Tehran's police chief has denied his officers opened fire, saying officers had been ordered to show "restraint."

Images on social media showed bloodied protesters and blood on the streets. Witnesses have claimed that dozens of protesters have been wounded.

Iranian authorities have come under a storm of criticism from across the divide in Iran. Even conservatives and hard-liners have criticized the government's handling of the disaster, accusing authorities of misleading the public.

In a rare public apology issued on January 12, the head of Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), General Hossein Salami, begged for forgiveness. Meanwhile, Khamenei on the same day expressed his "deep sympathy" to the families of the 176 victims and called on the armed forces to "pursue probable shortcomings and guilt in the painful incident."

But their words have done little to quell the outpouring of public anger.

'Fan The Fires'

Lucas said the student demonstrations had been fueled by "anger and a sense of betrayal."

"It remains to be seen if this intersects with the economic concerns that fed November's mass protests," he said. "And it remains to be seen if the regime pursues the same deadly repression that it used two months ago, killing hundreds of people and imprisoning thousands, and risks a further escalation."

Narges Bajoghli, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University, said the government's crackdown on the student protesters could make "things worse."

"If they think they can 'contain' anger at what they've done through crackdowns, they're only going to fan the fires," Bajoghli said on Twitter.