DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Iranian demonstrators defied a heavy police presence Sunday night to protest after their country denied for days that it shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane carrying 176 people.
Videos posted online showed protesters shouting anti-government slogans and moving through subway stations and sidewalks, many around Azadi Square in Tehran after an earlier call for people to demonstrate there. Other videos suggested similar protests were taking place in other Iranian cities.
Protesters often wore hoods and covered their faces to avoid being recognized by surveillance cameras. Some online videos purported to show police firing tear gas sporadically, though there was no immediate wholesale crackdown on demonstrators.
Meanwhile, in an emotional speech before parliament, the head of the Revolutionary Guard apologized for the shootdown and insisted it was a tragic mistake.
"I swear to almighty God that I wished I was on that plane and had crashed with them and burned but had not witnessed this tragic incident," said Gen. Hossein Salami. "I have never been this embarrassed in my entire life. Never."
Iran's state-run media, as well as semiofficial news agencies and publications, did not immediately report on the demonstrations. International rights groups have called on Iran to allow people to protest peacefully as allowed by the country's constitution.
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"After successive national traumas in a short time period, people should be allowed to safely grieve and demand accountability," said Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran. "Iranians shouldn't have to risk their lives to exercise their constitutional right to peaceful assembly."
Riot police in black uniforms and helmets earlier massed in Vali-e Asr Square, at Tehran University and at other landmarks. Revolutionary Guard members patrolled the city on motorbikes, and plainclothes security officers were also out in force. People looked down as they walked briskly past police, hoping not to draw attention to themselves.
The plane crash early Wednesday killed everyone on board, mostly Iranians and Iranian-Canadians. In the face of mounting evidence and accusations by Western leaders, Iranian authorities on Saturday admitted to accidentally shooting it down after initially pointing to a technical failure and insisting the armed forces were not to blame.
Iran downed the flight as it braced for possible American retaliation after firing ballistic missiles at two bases in Iraq housing U.S. forces. The missile attack, which caused no casualties, was a response to the killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad.
Iranians have expressed anger over the downing of the plane and the misleading explanations from senior officials in the wake of the incident. They are also mourning the dead, including many young people who were studying abroad.
President Donald Trump, who has expressed support for past waves of anti-government demonstrations in Iran, addressed the country's leaders in a tweet, saying in all capital letters: "Do not kill your protesters." He later tweeted the same message in the Farsi language.
"The World is watching. More importantly, the USA is watching," he tweeted.
A candlelight ceremony late Saturday in Tehran turned into a protest, with hundreds of people chanting against the country's leaders -- including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- and police dispersing them with tear gas. Protests were also held in the city of Isfahan and elsewhere.
DIPLOMAT'S ARREST
Police briefly detained the British ambassador to Iran, Rob Macaire, who said he went to the vigil without knowing it would turn into a protest.
"Can confirm I wasn't taking part in any demonstrations!" he tweeted. "Went to an event advertised as a vigil for victims of #PS752 tragedy. Normal to want to pay respects -- some of victims were British. I left after 5 mins, when some started chanting."
He said he was arrested 30 minutes after leaving the area.
Britain said its envoy was detained "without grounds or explanation" and in "flagrant violation of international law."
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi later tweeted that Macaire was arrested "as an unknown foreigner in an illegal gathering."
Alaeddin Boroujerdi, a member of Iran's parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy, accused the ambassador of organizing protests and called for his expulsion. Dozens of hard-liners later gathered outside the British Embassy, chanting "Death to England." They also called for the ambassador to be expelled and for the embassy to be closed.
The Iranian media, meanwhile, focused on the admission of responsibility for the crash, with several newspapers calling for those responsible to apologize and resign.
The hard-line daily Vatan-e Emrouz bore the front-page headline "A sky full of sadness," while the Hamshahri daily went with "Shame," and the IRAN daily said, "Unforgivable."
Mehdi Karroubi, an opposition activist under house arrest, lashed out at Khamenei, saying that as commander in chief, he was "directly responsible."
"If you were aware and you let military and security authorities deceive people, then there is no doubt you lack the attributes of constitutional leadership," he said in a statement.
Criticism of the supreme leader is punishable by up to two years in prison.
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POLITICAL CANDIDATES
The crash could change the political backdrop in Iran by raising pressure on the powerful Guardian Council to allow more reformist and competent candidates to stand in parliamentary elections set for Feb. 21, according to Saeed Leylaz, an economist and onetime adviser to Iran's only reformist president, Ali Mohammad Khatami.
Conservative parties are currently expected to win back control of the legislature from moderates, setting the tone for a new political cycle before presidential elections next year.
"It's the Chernobyl of the Islamic Republic," Leylaz said of Saturday's revelations. He was referring to the 1986 nuclear disaster in the then-Soviet republic of Ukraine, which cratered faith in the Communist Party and is widely seen as having contributed to the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991.
"The establishment has three major problems: corruption, inefficiency and inconsistency, and the plane crash once again laid bare the inefficiency and inconsistency in the system," Leylaz said.
The council said in a statement Sunday that it had finished vetting candidates. According to local media reports, it excluded dozens of current parliamentary members, most of them moderates, from running again.
Information for this article was contributed by Joseph Krauss and Jon Gambrell of The Associated Press and by Marc Champion, Arsalan Shahla and Golnar Motevalli of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 01/13/2020