We’re celebrating Iran president’s death despite the arrests

23/05/2024

As tens of thousands of mourners thronged the streets of Tehran on Wednesday to mourn the death of Iran’s late President Ebrahim Raisi, others opted to stay home and carry out quiet acts of resistance to the repressive regime.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers at the funeral of Mr Raisi, foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and other officials who were killed in Sunday’s helicopter crash near the Azerbaijan border.

State television showed tens of thousands mourners following the funeral procession as they wept, beat their chests and tossed scarves and other possessions onto the truck holding the caskets for blessing.

Iran has proclaimed five days of mourning following the deaths with government offices and private businesses ordered to close on Wednesday to coincide with the public event. Tehran residents were sent text messages calling on them to “attend the funeral of the martyr of service”.

Yet behind the scenes, some in Iran have defied government orders, opting instead to go about their day as usual or celebrate in small ways.

Sara, 27, an activist in the Iranian city of Shiraz, said some people were quietly resisting calls for national mourning by sharing sweets with family and friends and ignoring the order to stop work.

“There is nothing special about today, people are not upset and they were happy to do their usual routines,” said Sara, whose surname has been withheld to protect her identity.

“[The funeral] is not an important day for ordinary Iranians. People are very glad when they heard this news [of the helicopter crash].”

we’re celebrating iran president’s death despite the arrests

Iranians follow a truck carrying coffins of the Mr Raisi and his companions, who were killed in a helicopter crash, during a funeral ceremony in Tehran (Photo: Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)

Mr Raisi was dubbed the “butcher of Tehran” for his fearsome role in executing political prisoners during the 1980s. He also carried out hardline policies aimed at entrenching clerical power and cracking down on opponents including protesters following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody in 2022.

Niki Mahjoub, 45, senior reporter at Iran International based in London, said she had mixed feelings hearing the news of Mr Raisi’s death as those who lost family members to the “butcher of Tehran” will never get answers as to where their loved ones are.

“I would have preferred to find out what happened,” she told i. “He was a president that whatever he did made the life of people worse and worse and worse. That’s why you see loads of reaction – people laughing, people dancing, people make jokes of him.”

Ms Mahjoub said while some people in the country are supportive of the current leadership, others were celebrating despite the threat of arrest.

“In Tehran most of the pastry shops are empty because lots of people buy pastry and celebrate,” she said, adding that others were questioning why Western leaders had sent condolences.

Ms Mahjoub said the Iranian regime has also cracked down on public dissent following news of the crash, sending text messages to those who had posted on social media asking for them to be removed or ordered to the police station to face questioning. Journalists were warned publishing anything disparaging about the government or Mr Raisi would lead to consequences, in a sign of the state’s brittle grip on power, she said.

“The security forces can kill without hesitation, blind people, rape people, carry out sexual harassment, but the thing is they know they are weak,” she said. “The only thing they can do know is policing and controlling.”

Inside Iran's silent resistance movement defiantly celebrating president's death

Ali Safavi, a member of the foreign affairs committee of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said Mr Raisi’s death was “met with jubilation across many Iranian cities. Firecrackers were set off in celebration and people took to the streets to express their relief and joy.

“In a spontaneous outpouring of happiness, sweets were distributed in streets and businesses, symbolising a collective sigh of relief and a glimmer of hope for a future free from the brutal repression that Raisi epitomised.”

While Wednesday’s service had thousands turn out in Tehran, including many that travelled from across the Islamic Republic, onlookers described the crowds as smaller than the 2020 procession honouring Revolutionary Guard general Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad, the Associated Press reported.

Clerical leaders are now faced with scrambling to organise an election set for 28 June amid a time of international tensions amid Israel’s war with Gaza. In Iran, growing numbers have shunned recent elections in a test of the leadership’s legitimacy.

“The establishment lacks options to secure a high turnout in such a short period of time,” a former Iranian official, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, told Reuters.

“People are extremely unhappy with the state of economy, many others are furious about social restrictions and a lack of electoral options could result in a low turnout.”

At the funeral on Wednesday, the Iran-backed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah’s deputy chief Naim Qassem were in attendance.

A black turban was placed over Mr Raisi’s casket, signalling he was considered a direct descendent of Islam’s Prophet Mohamed.

Many expressed sympathies for the dead, including Sima Rahmani, a 27-year-old Tehran woman wearing a loose headscarf despite the risk of detention by police.

“He was our president, the others were pilots and a minister, how can I be indifferent about their loss?” she told the Associated Press.

“I did not vote for Raisi in 2021 election, but he was the president of all people,” said Morteza Nemati, a 28-year-old physics student at Tehran Azad University. “My presence is a way of paying tribute to him.”