Nov. 26 – Iran’s President, Ebrahim Raisi, came under increasing pressure to resolve the country’s economic crisis this week, following a visit to Boyer-Ahmad, a deprived province in south western Iran.
The president was met with desperate pleas for help as he drove through the area in a motorcade, but refused to pull over to speak with residents, according to a report in the Financial Times.
High inflation, sanctions and economic mismanagement in Iran have led to nationwide protests about pay and water shortages affecting the country.
Ministers representing the UK, Canada, Sweden and the Ukraine criticized Iran’s government for failing to meet with the states to discuss compensation for the downing of flight PS752, in a statement released by the UK Foreign Office.
Ukraine International Airlines flight 752 was shot down by Iranian officials after it took off from Tehran on Jan. 8, 2020, following heightened tensions between Iran and the US. The commercial plane was carrying 176 passengers and crew, who all died in the crash.
A report by a group representing the victims of the crash has alleged that the incident was not an accident caused by a missile systems operator and that high ranking members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) were responsible.
The report also suggested that Iranian officials had tampered with electronic devices and misidentified the remains of some of the passengers on the flight. The Iranian government had initially lied about the cause of the crash but later admitted to shooting down the plane after evidence was published online.
And the United Nations called Iran’s execution of child offenders “deeply alarming and shocking” in a press release it issued on Thursday.
In the statement, the UN condemned the execution of Arman Abdolali, who was 17 when he was accused of murder. Abdolali had told officials he had been forced to make a confession to the crime under torture.
More than 85 people are on death row in the Islamic Republic for crimes they allegedly committed as children, and more than 70 per cent of executions of child offenders worldwide are carried out in Iran.
