UIA
An Ukraine International Airlines aircraft. Credit: Juanedc via Flickr.

Two UN Human Rights Council-appointed experts have accused Iran of violating human rights over Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) Flight PS752 crash last year.

On 8 January 2020, the Kyiv-bound aircraft was carrying 55 citizens and 30 permanent residents of Canada.

Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) air defence TOR unit misjudged the civilian aircraft for a US missile and shot it down by firing two missiles. The disaster killed 176 people on board.

UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Agnès Callamard unveiled the results of an investigation into the incident.

Javaid Rehman, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, also expressed concern over the incident.

Callamard delivered a 45-page letter to the Iranian Government in December, in which she reported her findings from a six-month investigation into the disaster.

The letter has been made public after 60 days.

She wrote: “In situations of high military tension, the most effective means to prevent attacks on civil aviation is to close the airspace. Had Iran, knowing full well that hostilities with the US could readily escalate, closed its airspace for civilian traffic that evening, 176 human beings would not have been killed.

“The inconsistencies in the official explanations seem designed to create a maximum of confusion and a minimum of clarity. They seem contrived to mislead and bewilder.”