Iranians protest for third day over downed airliner

Iranians staged protests Monday for the third straight day, as anger at the government intensified after it admitted that it shot down a Ukrainian airliner it mistook for a hostile aircraft amid heightened tensions with the United States last week, killing 176 people on board. What’s happening

Videos posted on social media showed hundreds of students gathered Monday in a courtyard at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran. The university said 13 students and alumni were aboard the downed plane.

Videos from Sunday night showed demonstrators fleeing from tear gas and in one case a woman bleeding from the leg - a wound that protesters said was caused by live ammunition. In other videos posted on social media, which could not immediately be verified, sounds of gunfire could be heard at protests in Azadi Square in the capital, as well as in the city of Shiraz.

Why it matters

The fury at Iran’s government marked a stunning turnaround for leaders in Tehran. After a U.S. drone strike killed Iran’s Quds Force commander, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, on Jan. 3, hundreds of thousands of Iranians rallied in a display of public mourning.

But since the downing of the airliner, protesters have confronted heavily-armed police officers and torn down posters of Soleimani.

Elsewhere, the government had been forced to replace Soleimani’s portrait with messages mourning victims of the crash. Journalists working for state media have resigned, and one apologized on social media for misleading the public for years.

How the stage was set

Soleimani’s death prompted Iran to fire more than a dozen ballistic missiles at Iraqi military bases hosting U.S. troops.

In the hours after those attacks early Wednesday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 with a surface-to-air missile, a move it blamed on “human error.” Among the dead were 82 Iranians, 57 Canadians and 11 Ukrainians, including the crew. Most, if not all, of the Canadians were reported to be of Iranian origin or dual nationals.