Iran cops asked to show ‘restraint’ at protests

“The police treated the people who had gathered with patience and tolerance” in a second night of demonstrations in Tehran on Sunday, said General Hossein Rahimi.

“The police did not shoot at the gatherings at all because a restraint order (had been issued) for police in the capital,” he said. The Ukraine International Airlines plane bound for Kiev was shot down shortly after take-off from Tehran on Wednesday, killing all 176 people on board. Officials in Iran initially denied Western claims the Boeing 737 was downed by a missile, before acknowledging on Saturday that it had been shot down in a catastrophic error. A gathering by hundreds of students at a Tehran university on Saturday evening to honour the dead turned into an angry demonstration against the authorities before it was dispersed by police. 

Meanwhile, Britain summoned the Iranian ambassador on Monday to protest the detention of London’s envoy to Tehran at the weekend, the government said.

Thousands of people have attended vigils in Canada for the 57 Canadian victims of the Ukrainian airliner crash in Iran, most of them from the Iranian community. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told that “this tragedy struck our Iranian-Canadian community, leaving cities like Edmonton reeling, but this was truly a Canadian tragedy.”“We want to assure all families and all Canadians that we will not rest until there are answers,” he said.