Iran’s cynical lies to its people

Iran’s ayatollahs should not be surprised by the angry protests sweeping the country following the shooting down of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 with 176 passengers and crew. The regime lied for three days, claiming it had no idea what caused the tragedy. Then Iranians learned that armed forces chiefs knew “within a few minutes” that the aircraft was hit by one of Iran’s own surface-to-air missiles.

Tehran also cynically tried to pin the blame on the US assassination of terrorist-in-chief Qassem Soleimani. “Human error at a time of crisis caused by US adventurism led to disaster,” Foreign Minister Javad Zarif declared.

In any normal country such blatant attempts at obfuscation and cover-up would lead to the government’s downfall. But Iran is no democracy: low-level military officers who fired the missile are set to be prosecuted while the country’s top leaders, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have been exonerated.

No wonder protesting students at Tehran’s Shahid Beheshti University have been defiantly chanting: “Our real ‘human error’ was the 1979 revolution (which brought the ayatollahs to power) … They are lying that our enemy is America … our enemy is right here … the Revolutionary Guards and their Basij paramilitary allies are our ISIS.”

They have been joined by students and civic leaders across Iran in the biggest outpouring of anti-regime dissent in a decade. Prominent broadcasters on state television have resigned over false reporting, while Iran’s only female Olympic medallist, Kimia Alizadeh, has fled abroad, saying she no longer wants to be part of “hypocrisy, lies, injustice and flattery”. Even the semi-official Fars news agency has carried a rare report on the surge of anti-government unrest, including details of incidents in which portraits of Soleimani have been torn down by angry protesters.

Donald Trump was right to do what Barack Obama failed to do during the 2009 Green Movement and declare strong US support for the anti-regime protesters. “Do not kill your protesters,” he tweeted. “The world is watching. More importantly, the US is watching. Stop the killing of your great Iranian people.”