Iranian demonstrators defied a heavy police presence Sunday night to protest their country’s days of denials that it shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane carrying 176 people, in the latest unrest to roil the capital amid soaring tensions with the United States.

Videos posted online showed protesters shouting anti-government slogans and moving through subway stations and sidewalks, many around Azadi, or Freedom, Square after an earlier call for people to demonstrate there. Other videos suggested similar protests were taking place in other Iranian cities.

Some of the videos showed men with guns on the streets, bleeding demonstrators on sidewalks, police in riot gear beating people in public, and dissidents burning posters of slain general Qassem Soleimani.

Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top storiesairplane shot down by Islamic Republic itself.

3 days of national mourning for #SoleimaniFuneral but for ordinary people noting.

This called dictatorship pic.twitter.com/lOP3kD37n5 — Masih Alinejad ????️ (@AlinejadMasih) January 12, 2020

Riot police in black uniforms and helmets earlier massed in Vali-e Asr Square, at Tehran University and other landmarks. Revolutionary Guard members patrolled the city on motorbikes, and plainclothes security men 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. After initially pointing to a technical failure and insisting the armed forces were not to blame, authorities on Saturday admitted accidentally shooting it down in the face of mounting evidence and accusations by Western leaders.

Iran downed