Khamenei was killed at the launch of the US-Iran war in February in a bid to destabilise and ultimately topple the government. Photograph: Murad Sezer/ReutersView image in fullscreenKhamenei was killed at the launch of the US-Iran war in February in a bid to destabilise and ultimately topple the government. Photograph: Murad Sezer/ReutersMillions join funeral procession for Iran’s supreme leader Ali KhameneiCrowds grew as they moved through Tehran as mourners wore black and carried flags with the slogan ‘we will rise’
A millions strong crowd assembled on Monday to take part in the funeral procession of Iran’s assassinated supreme leader.
The scale, and depth of the march, however engineered, is an extraordinary turn around for a country that only seven months ago was gripped by street protests that saw thousands killed by government security forces. Many will say that the assembly was a monument to a misconceived war launched on Iran by Donald Trump in February.
The crowds moved from east, to west through Tehran, from Revolution Square to Azadi Square, after the body of the supreme leader, and members of his slain family had been given a two-day funeral in the Grand Masalla mosque in Tehran. The mourners universally wore black but carried flags with the slogan “we will rise” as well as the flag of Iran, or pictures of Khamenei. The Tehran metro was packed as crowds tried to join the march.
The crowd chanted “Mourning is mourning today, mourning day is today / Martyr Khamenei is before God today”.
Read moreAt the funeral on Sunday “Kill Trump” was chalked on the stage by the mourners who throughout the ceremony laced a desire for revenge with personal grief.
Khamenei was killed by Israeli bombs at the launch of the war in February, in a bid to destabilise and ultimately topple the government.
The funeral procession was likely to last between 10 and 12 hours depending on the numbers participating, and was always likely to draw the largest crowds since only limited numbers could enter the huge Masalla mosque at any one time.
On Sunday the entire Iranian leadership, depleted by successive Israeli assassinations, turned out for the morning prayer with the one exception of the new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the slain supreme leader and now his appointed successor. His three grieving brothers did attend, and Iranian officials insisted his absence is not due to wounds sustained in the Israeli attack on the president’s building, but due to fears for his safety.
View image in fullscreenPeople gather at Ferdowsi Square for the funeral procession of Khamenei in Tehran on 6 July. Photograph: Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty ImagesIn a feat for the state services, and the volunteer civic army feeding and housing the mourners, no one was killed, unlike in previous state linked funerals that rapidly went out of control including, the funeral for the previous supreme leader.
Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian praised the behaviour of the crowds.
He expressed the hope that the images emerging from Iran would force the west to reflect on its determination to change Iran from without. He admitted “If I want to say something, only a few Persian speakers will understand it, but the behaviour and presence of the people are understood by the whole world.”
Rejecting US president Donald Trump’s claim that the tears at the funeral may be fake, he said “This greatness, these tears that flow from the eyes of girls, men, and children, is not something that can be created by order. Tears arise from the pain and sorrow that surges within a person, and the world sees this truth.”
More than 300 foreign journalists, in addition to those foreign reporters based in Iran, had been granted rare visas to report on the funeral and the display of national cohesion.
Pezeshkian, a reformist elected two years ago who has put emphasis on building consensus within the political elite said “I do not accept the interpretation of farewell; this is a covenant for continuing on the path. “This is not actually a farewell, but rather a pact to continue on the path.”
He added: “By entering this war, the enemy disrupted the geography of the region, but in fact it strengthened the unity and cohesion among Muslims and even made the people of the world aware of its human rights claims.”
Emphasising that the US and Israel proved in this war that the issues of freedom and human rights it raises are nothing more than lies, the President continued: “The Zionists are the perpetrators of all the crimes that are taking place in the region, and of course this is done with the support of the United States and European countries.”
