The late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last weekend, was buried on Thursday in his hometown of Mashhad.
Raisi was buried next to the mausoleum of the eighth Shiite Imam Reza in Mashhad, state broadcaster IRIB reported. It is considered the most important Shia shrine in Iran.
Three million people attended the funeral ceremony in Mashhad, according to state news agency IRNA. There were no independent estimates of the size of the crowd.
Raisi and his Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian were among those killed in the helicopter crash in the northwest of the country on Sunday.
Amirabdollahian’s funeral took place in Tehran on Thursday. Iran’s state news agency ISNA said the funeral took place at the Shah Abdol-Azim Shrine in the south of the capital.
Before that, there was a state-organized funeral service for the president in his home region of Khorasan, attended by tens of thousands.
The provincial capital Birjand was chosen as the penultimate stop of the funeral ceremonies because Raisi had a special bond with the city, Vice President Mohsen Mansouri explained. Raisi also represented Birjand in the Assembly of Experts, an influential spiritual body in Iran.
A similar funeral service was held in the capital Tehran on Wednesday, with Iran’s Supreme Leader also present Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
After the religious ritual at the University of Tehran, there was also a ceremony with foreign representatives who traveled to Tehran. In addition to the Emir of Qatar, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, the head of Hamas and the chairman of the Russian State Duma paid their last respects to the late president.
The absence of the last three Iranian presidents caused a stir. Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013) and Hassan Rohani (2013-21) were reportedly not invited to the funeral ceremony because they had sharply criticized Raisi and his arch-conservative stance on several occasions.
Raisi’s successor will be chosen on June 28.
According to observers, the country’s moderate politicians are likely to be excluded again in the run-up to the elections. It is therefore expected that a candidate from the arch-conservative camp will win the race again.
The favorite is Raisi’s deputy Mohammad Mokhber, who also serves as interim president until the elections. As Raisi’s close confidante, it is very likely that Mokhber will continue his policies. There is little hope among Iranians that political change will occur under him – or under any other arch-conservative president.
While government supporters mourned Raisi’s death, critics in Iran pointed to the cleric’s past. During his time as attorney general in 1988, he was held responsible for the execution of numerous dissidents. As president, he also took a tough stance, especially against women and their social rights.
Raisi and Amirabdollahian, along with seven other occupants of the ill-fated helicopter, died in the crash. They headed into the mountains in dense fog as they traveled back from a meeting with Ilham Aliyev, the president of neighboring Azerbaijan.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared five days of national mourning and a national holiday was observed on Wednesday.
