Tens of thousands of Iranians gathered early Wednesday, May 22, in the center of Tehran, to pay a final tribute to Iranian President Ebrahim Raïssi, who died on Sunday in the crash of his helicopter, state television reported. Tehran residents received messages on their phones calling on them to “attend the martyr’s funeral.”
Crowds are gathered in and around Tehran University, where the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is to lead prayers at the farewell ceremony for Ebrahim Raisi, who died at 63, with seven other people in the accident. At the end of the prayer, the processions must converge towards Enghelab Square, in the city center.
Wednesday was declared a public holiday, and the authorities declared a five-day mourning throughout the country, while preparing the process of replacing Mr. Raisi, who has presided over Iran since 2021. One of the tasks of the president by interim, Mohammad Mokhber, 68, is preparing for the presidential election, which will be held on June 28.
Several foreign countries, such as Russia, Turkey and Iraq, have announced that they will be represented at the funeral, but not at the level of heads of state. The political leader of Hamas, Ismaïl Haniyeh, attended the ceremony, as did Hezbollah’s number two, Naïm Qassem.
Scheduled to last until Thursday, the funeral began Tuesday in Tabriz, the large northwestern city near which the accident occurred. The eight coffins covered with the Iranian flag were then transferred to the holy city of Qom, south of the capital, where a huge crowd attended the ceremony. Numerous and huge portraits of the “martyr” Ebrahim Raïssi have been hung and hung in public places in the main cities. He will be buried Thursday in Mashhad (north-east), his hometown.
The funerals are organized according to the tradition of large gatherings that marked the first forty-five years of the Islamic Republic, such as that following the death of General Ghassem Soleimani, a senior military official killed by an American strike in Iraq in 2020.
Ultraconservative Ebrahim Raïssi was considered one of the favorites to succeed 85-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. During his presidency, he faced a popular protest movement in 2022, an economic crisis worsened by US sanctions and increased tensions with arch-enemy Israel.