from Tabriz to Mashhad, three days of funeral ceremonies with great fanfare for President Raïssi

This Thursday marks the last day of funeral ceremonies for President Ebrahim Raïssi. In Iran, thousands of people have marched over the past three days in several cities across the country in memory of the president who died on Sunday in a helicopter crash.

The former president of the Islamic Republic is to be buried on Thursday in the holy city of Mashhad, which is also his hometown, four days after he was killed in a helicopter crash along with Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and six others . He, who was Ayatollah, must be buried in the main Shiite mausoleum of the country, that of Imam Reza, a place visited by millions of pilgrims each year.

A huge crowd

As of Tuesday, a huge crowd gathered in Tabriz, in the province of East Azerbaijan, where the bodies of the eight victims were brought after being found in the wreckage of the helicopter. People crowded around the truck carrying the coffins.

On Wednesday, it was in Tehran that tens of thousands of people gathered in the center of the capital, to pay a final tribute to the president celebrated as a “martyr” after his death. These ceremonies took place according to the tradition of large gatherings that marked the first 45 years of the Islamic Republic, such as the one following the death of General Qassem Soleimani, a senior military official killed by an American strike in Iraq in 2020.

On Wednesday, a public holiday, the ceremonies began with a prayer led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who prostrated himself before the coffins of the eight men killed in the crash.

Publishing photos of the crowd on their front pages, conservative dailies praised Thursday “epic goodbyes”of the “farewell to paradise” for the late president, forever “in the hearts of the people”, according to the Iran government newspaper. More soberly, the reformist dailies headlined, like Sazandegi, on “the last goodbye”.

No European Union country was represented at the ceremony, while Iran’s relations with Western countries remain very tense. But leaders from countries in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia, including Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, attended a tribute ceremony in the afternoon, at which Around sixty countries were represented. The Tunisian President, Kaïs Saïed, the first leader of this country to visit Iran since the revolution, was received by Ayatollah Khamenei.

This Thursday in Mashhad, the second most populous city and main holy city of Iran, giant portraits of the late president, black flags and Shiite symbols were erected in the streets, particularly around the Reza shrine.