Keith Griffith For Dailymail.com describes the tense situation:
"Ukrainian Airlines Flight 752 was carrying 176 people, at least 130 of them Iranian citizens, when it was shot down by hapless Iranian Revolutionary Guard air defense forces shortly after taking off from Tehran on January 8.
Iran for days claimed that a technical failure caused the crash, before admitting on Saturday that its own surface-to-air missiles brought the plane down.
Iran was on high alert at the time, hours after launching ballistic missiles at U.S. forces in Iraq in a strike that caused no casualties. That missile strike was in retaliation for a U.S. operation that killed powerful Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.
After Iran's admission, however, Canada's prime minister appeared to cast doubt on the claim that the shoot-down was an accident, suggesting there may have been an Iranian motive for the disaster. Many passengers were dual Canadian citizens.
On Saturday afternoon, candlelight vigils at universities in Tehran for the victims of Flight 752 began to turn to protests against the regime. Large protests were reported at the universities of Tehran, Sharif Industrial, Amir Kabir, and Allameh.
...Protesters demanded that those responsible for shooting down the civilian plane be publicly tried and held accountable.
The crowd also condemned the Islamic Republic's paramilitary internal security force, chanting 'Death to Basij.'
As night fell, riot police attempted to break up the protests with tear gas.
Cops armed with shields and batons tried to disperse the crowds, and police fired water canons at protesters.
Anti-regime factions said that the protests reflected the frustrations of Iranian citizens with the government corruption and oppression.
'The protest by thousands of Iranians in Tehran burst the propaganda balloon of the regime regarding Qassem Soleimani's elimination,' said Shahin Gobadi, spokesman of the anti-regime group People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, in a statement to DailyMail.com.
Gobadi said that the protests 'showed the true sentiments of the Iranians and once again clearly proved that Iran is a powder keg and the Iranian people will not stop until the regime change.'"
