Front Burner - Flight 752 fallout: the view from Iran

Episode Date: January 14, 2020

Today on Front Burner, as anti-government protests erupt in Iran over the shooting down of Flight 752, reports are coming out that live ammunition is being used in the police crackdown. We speak to a journalist on the ground in Tehran.

This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. Protesters took to the streets of Iran for a third straight day on Monday. Protesters took to the streets of Iran for a third straight day on Monday. They're furious about their government's admission that the military, the Iranian National Guard or the IRGC, shot down a passenger plane carrying so many of its own people. The plane was carrying 176 people, including 57 with Canadian citizenship. including 57 with Canadian citizenship. The protesters are also furious that it took their government several days to come clean about what really happened.

They're chanting, resignation is not enough here. High-profile Iranian broadcasters, actors and directors are speaking out too. But there are also reports of a crackdown. Live ammunition and tear gas fired into a crowd. Today, Somaya Malekian is a Tehran-based journalist who has been covering these protests as well as earlier protests that we saw late last year. Then, a look at what could happen next.

This is Frontburner. that we saw late last year. Then, a look at what could happen next. This is Frontburner. Hi, Sumaya. Thank you so much for making the time to talk with us today. Of course. Thank you for having me. We're seeing reports here, videos that are coming out of police firing live ammunition into a crowd of protesters and of tear gas being used.

What do you know, if anything, about that? Last night, many people went to What do you know, if anything, about that? Last night, many people went to Azadi Square, and I attended there to cover. And I witnessed the use of tear gas by police, but I didn't see using live ammunition against people. But later, I saw on social media videos of a woman

apparently who got shot in her leg. What news are there? I personally couldn't verify the video but it has gone viral and it shows blood on the pavement and people trying to find a way to help the woman.

Okay, Turan's police chief has denied this. He says that the police have been told to show restraint in these protests. What do you make of that? Yes, Iran police also says that there have been strangers shooting inside the crowd and they declined to accept the responsibility. I know you've been out on the streets covering the protests over the last few days. People protesting against the

downing of Flight 752. And what are the protesters saying? What do they want? The majority of the protesters for sure are angry. They are upset and shocked, not just for the news of shooting down the passenger plane, but more importantly, about the three days of denial of the IRGC for hiding the truth that they actually shot down the airplane by mistake. Of course, people feel for the families of the victims. Of course, they are very sorry for losing their fellow citizens. But the fact that they have been waiting for three days

and they heard lies after lies that, you know, the problem has been with the technical issues in the engine and so many other technical issues. Iran has accused Western leaders of lying about the cause of the Ukrainian plane crash. The head of the aviation authority here said that it was scientifically impossible and illogical that it was shut down by a missile. The thing that is clear to us and that we can say with certainty is that this plane was not hit by a missile. But at the end, they believe that if it was not because of the international passengers on board, they believe that they would never hear the truth.

Okay. Do you know what prompted the admission by Iran to admit to shooting down the plane after three days of attempting to cover it up? What are Iranian officials telling Iranians? Iranian officials are saying that they, you know, there are two sides of the story. The IRGC that, you know, the aerospace commander of IRGC said that he heard the news within an hour after the plane was crashed and he quickly had informed his own higher-ups within the IRGC.

But they said that they kept it within IRGC because they wanted to do more investigations inside of the military framework to make sure if the mistake has been due to just human error or the problem has been with if their system has been hacked or, you know, some other systematic problem. It is why they said that they have been trying to figure out before giving the news to the public. giving the news to the public. And IRGC, both the commander and the head of the aerospace unit, said that they had not informed the government, the president, and they had not informed the civil airline organization. And civil airline organization has been the reference to the media for covering the news for the first three days. And it is why people kept the news as if the plane had been

crashed due to technical issues. Are people that you're speaking to, do they believe that? Do they buy that? You know, at this point, it's hard for them to differentiate between the government and the IRGC. They would say either the government knew it and has hidden it for three days, which is very bad, or they didn't know about it, which again shows like a huge gap within the management, the general scope of the management in the country. You mentioned before that there had been protests in the street after the death of Qasem Soleimani,

the Quds Force general who was killed by the United States, that there was a lot of anger directed at the United States. War for America! War for America! But now there are protests where a lot of anger is being directed at Iran. War for peace! War for peace! Some commentators are saying that the allegiances are shifting, that people are changing their minds.

Is that a fair characterization? Well, I would say that every single day, we have been waking up to some news that, you know, opens up a new window, you know, from the day that General Soleimani was killed, we constantly have been faced with new information. General Ghosn Soleimani has had so many fans, both within the conservative and middle class.

And this is why you saw on his funeral, you know, so many people attended. and middle class. And this is why you saw on his funeral, you know, so many people attended. But at the same time, many of those who attended the funeral were not necessarily in line with other, you know, other policies of the government and the system. And you could see, you know, I read several tweets that people are saying that I attended the funeral

and I also attended the vigils and the protests of the plane crash. So they are not necessarily contradictory. Okay. But at the same time, hiding the truth about the plane crash for three days have brought a crack and gap even inside the supporters of the system, because they also were shocked with the news. And more importantly, with hiding it for three days. Do you think that these protests, the anger that we're seeing directed at the regime for their handling of the crash, is it threatening the stability of the regime?

It's hard to say that. It's really not easy to respond to that question. The system has survived a series of unrest in the past few years. More than two years ago, we had like turnout in many cities across the country. They chanted, not Gaza, not Lebanon, my life for Iran, an expression of anger about claims the government is focusing more on regional issues than economic problems at home. Again, we had it a few months ago. Gas rationing and price hikes are angering people in Iran, where U.S. sanctions are putting the country's economy at risk.

putting the country's economy at risk. But the fact that the distance, the time distance between these protests are getting closer and closer to each other is meaningful. I also wanted to get your perspective. Right before we spoke on Monday, one of Iran's most famous actresses, Tereni Ali Dosti, criticized the government on Instagram. To her six million followers, she said, we are not citizens, we are captives.

And this comes amid reports that live ammunition was used in the protests. How significant is this? Ali Dosti is a very popular actress in Iran. a very popular actress in Iran. And when she says that, she knows about the consequences that saying that might have for her. But she says it anyway, and she's not the only person saying that.

There are a number of filmmakers, producers that have decided to throw their products out of Iran's national film festival, which is called Fajr Festival. So they're kind of boycotting the festival to show that they do not support anything supported by the system. Also, a group of cartoonists issued a statement saying that they would not participate in the Faj Festival. We see a few of TV anchors saying that they would stop working at the state TV.

But still, the scale is not big enough to say that it's going to be a huge blow to the system or to the state TV. Samaya, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today. I hope that you're staying safe there. Thank you so much. I'll be safe. Inshallah. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization.

Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Angel Investment and Industry Connections. So you've got people in the streets, furious with the Iranian regime for downing this jet, demanding justice. And you've got regular Iranians struggling under U.S. sanctions, inflation is soaring, meat and fuel prices are through the roof. There were widespread fuel cost protests in late 2019.

There were widespread fuel cost protests in late 2019. And now you've got more international pressure to conduct an investigation that goes beyond what happened to the plane. I want to assure all families and all Canadians, we will not rest until there are answers. We will not rest until there is justice and accountability. So what comes next? We're going back to Heather Hurlburt now. She was on the show last week following the U.S. strike that killed the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. Heather is a national security expert who held senior positions in the White House and State Department under President Bill Clinton. She's now with New America, a U.S. think tank.

Hi, Heather. Thank you so much for joining me again and so soon after we spoke last week. Well, the news just never stops. I know. We have a lot to talk about. Well, the news what you're seeing is that it's generated pro-regime energy, but it's also generated anti-regime energy. And you're now seeing multiple kinds of demonstrations. And perhaps equally importantly, you're seeing frustration with Iran from other world powers that were certainly frustrated with the U.S. for the way the strike happened and for not being notified about it. But to then watch Iran work so hard to try to avoid taking responsibility for the shoot down of the Ukrainian airliner has really, I think, soaked up some of the sympathy that Iran might otherwise have had in the aftermath of the Soleimani killing. I want to talk with you for a moment about these protests that we're seeing in Iran. The latest reports coming out is that there has been a crackdown. There is reportedly live ammunition being fired into the crowd.

So Maya Malekian, a producer on the ground that we spoke to, she seemed unsure, though, whether this latest news and these protests would threaten the regime. What do you think? My sense, and if your producer on the ground isn't sure, I'm certainly not going to make confident pronouncements, but the counter regime protests are significant, but not enormous. And remember, Iran has been seeing steady amounts of counter-regime protest for a year or more now. So, look, this is a reminder that the regime is weak. It feels weak. It feels threatened.

It feels so threatened that, as you said, it's responding with live ammunition. But there's no reason to believe that it's fundamentally more vulnerable than it was a month or two months ago. Okay. And when you mention these protests that we've seen throughout the year, we're talking about the protests that we saw in response to rising gas prices, which are linked to U.S. sanctions against the country. The American sanctions are meant to pressure the Iranian government into giving up its nuclear weapons program. And they're hitting the average Iranian hard in the pocketbook. Gas prices are going up about 50 percent. Yes. And I think it's important to and some Iranian American and Iranian Canadian journalists have been making this point.

It's important to be able to hold both ideas in the mind at once that Iranians might both be very frustrated at their own government and very frustrated with the Trump administration at the same time. Okay. Iran's about face on Saturday, this admission that they shot down the plane. Were you surprised to see this? Why do you think they admitted to it after three days of denying it? Well, the first thing that happened was, I mean, the finding of missile parts in the wreckage and the clarity that it wasn't going to be possible to, or it was going to be decreasingly possible to stonewall. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was the first to publicly announce the theory. We have intelligence from multiple sources, including our allies and our own intelligence.

U.S. media say these images appear to show the moment the Ukrainian airliner was hit. And second, I mean, the point I made earlier, which is that Iran is dependent on some measure of goodwill or at least neutrality from Canada and European countries in its effort to squirm out from underneath the U.S. attempts to exert maximum pressure. And third, the fact that not just the Iranian government, but the Revolutionary Guards were ready to say, look, we did this, we made a mistake. When I confirmed what had happened, I really wished I could die myself. I said I wished I could die to not's not when there's such an event.

For a lifetime, we've made ourselves ready to die for the people. Today, we're trading our reputation with Almighty God. My guess also is that it took that long within the Iranian government to hash out who was going to take responsibility. You talked about Iran being dependent on neutrality from Canada and other European states. The official opposition here in Canada's parliament, the Conservative Party of Canada, is saying our government should be ramping up its condemnation of Iran right now. It wants the government to designate the Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist group and to be prepared to impose sanctions on Tehran's leadership if it isn't cooperative in the investigation? People here in Canada obviously want accountability,

they want answers. Do you think this is the right approach that our government should be taking? Right. Well, the question with sanctions of any kind is, what are you trying to get? And I think the challenge for Canada here is, to what extent do sanctions and pressure, with the goal of producing accountability for Canadians who lost loved ones, to what extent can they be targeted enough to achieve that outcome? And to what extent do they just get lumped in with the U.S. campaign of masculine pressure and sanctions around Iranian terrorist and regional activities? And the Iranian government just shrugs and says, these are more sanctions. It's all more of the same. So I guess my challenge back to

Canadians would be, what can you do that's specific? What can you do that says this is really all about justice for Canadians? And if there's not an obvious link, then I'm skeptical that it'll be effective. What specifically do you think we could do at this point? So one, I think it would be important for Canada to act in concert with the other countries that had nationals on the plane. And two, I think the possibility of saying to Iran, look, ours are governments that have not wholeheartedly embraced the Trump administration's designations and sanctions. If you do not follow these very specific steps for accountability, we would have no reason not to. You see what I mean? So holding out the prospect that there's something Iran can do that prevents things from getting worse rather than saying, we're just going to go ahead and jump all the way in with the Americans.

OK, I want to go back to Washington with you before we end this conversation today. So when we talked last week, General Soleimani had been killed. Since then, of course, there is the admission that Iran shot down this passenger plane. But also right before that happened, there was a response by Iran. They did hit military bases in Iraq, where U.S. soldiers were based, though there were no casualties. It does seem like tensions have died down for the moment between the United States and Iran. But what might we expect in the coming days and weeks? So there's been reporting suggesting that even as President Trump was tweeting and talking very bellicosely about the U.S. response. Let this serve as a

warning, he tweeted, that if Iran strikes any Americans or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites. There was an exchange of messages between the U.S. and Iranian governments, basically saying to the Iranians, moderate your response and then we'll let it go. And that indeed, at the same time, unfortunately, as the passenger jet was being shot down, the Iranians were sending a message to the U.S. through intermediaries saying that salvo of rockets is all that we're going to see. Now, so that's happened and that's led some commentators to sort of declare victory and say, phew, this is over and we can all move on. At the same time, we've seen things like the guerrilla forces in Iraq that are backed by Iran saying we will wait a little bit longer to see if U.S. forces leave. And if not, we will begin a campaign of terror to drive them out. So it's really clear that the

larger universe of forces that Iran backs are in no way done with this episode. And that we have to continue to brace for attacks on our forces and diplomats in the region. At the same time, the domestic political fallout here is continuing over whether the administration Trump signed off on killing Soleimani months ago, which would be just a completely different story from anything we'd heard in the press up to now. Five current and former administration officials tell NBC the president gave the go-ahead to kill Soleimani if Iran's aggression led to the death of any American, provided the president got final sign-off first. Right. And we just saw a tweet from Donald Trump, which essentially said, yes, the attack was imminent, but also,

even if it wasn't, it doesn't really matter. That was essentially sort of the gist of what he tweeted. That does seem to be I mean, this is the other thing that has become clear in the U.S. in the last week is that this administration and many in Congress simply believe that Congress has no role whatsoever in the use of force and that the administration, any administration may decide to use any kind of force anytime it wants, which may continue to be controversial over the next few months. Any indication that this administration, the Trump administration, is looking to make, you know, more aggressive moves towards Iran?

You talked about the possibility of Iran meeting out more retribution, but what about the possibility that the U.S. could do something here? So we've had really mixed messages in that, you know, we've had more sanctions imposed, so more aggressive non-military measures, more really strong rhetoric from cabinet members around President Trump. But at the same time, you have the president tweeting things like, I don't really care if they negotiate or not. And definitely a parade of very high level visitors and conversations urging the president not to take another military step. Okay. Heather Holbrook, thank you so much for joining us.

Great to be here. Okay, so after we spoke with Somaya, it was reported that prominent Iranian film director Rakhshan Banyatimad had been briefly detained. She was among the artists who called for rallies to honor the victims. But she had withdrawn that call under pressure from security forces. And on the investigation into the crash itself, Canada's Transportation Safety Board announced that two of their air accident investigators

were en route to Tehran along with a Canadian consular team. Cathy Fox, the chair of the TSB, said another team specializing in black box analysis would also be sent to wherever that analysis may happen. Iranians are, the Accident Investigation Bureau are currently looking at, you know, some of the challenges associated with downloading and analyzing damaged recorders. And they have reached out to other countries, including Canada, for technical assistance that we could bring to Iran. Iran is heading up the investigation into the crash. Ms. Fox said it's still not clear what the full scope of Canada's role in the investigation will be, but that access to the flight and data recorders is a positive sign.

That's all for today. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner and talk to you tomorrow.