Mass funeral ceremonies begin for the death of Ebrahim Raisi, president of Iran, in a plane crash

Thousands of people waving flags of Iran and flowers gathered this Tuesday in a funeral march to honor the president, Ibrahim Raisi, died in a helicopter accident. The events to commemorate the president began this Tuesday in the city of Tabriz, in the northwest of the country, capital of the province where Raisi and six other passengers died in an accident whose causes are still unknown. Raisi was traveling on the helicopter along with the Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian; the governor of East Azerbaijan province, Malek Rahmati; the Imam of Tabriz, Seyyed Mohammad Ali; a bodyguard and two pilots.

At first hour of the morning an open truck With the coffins of the deceased he marched slowly between Martyrs Square to the Badragh mosque. Images from the Iranian station Press TV showed hundreds of people approaching the vehicle to throw flowers at the deceased or give scarves to the security forces to honor the dead, rubbing the clothes on the coffins. Many of the attendees wore banners with portraits of the deceased, Others raised flags of countries where militias or political parties related to Iran operate: such as Iraq, Yemen, the Palestinian flag and the green and yellow shield of the Lebanese Shiite party Hezbollah. The funeral march thus inaugurated the series of events called by the authorities to honor the fatal victims of the plane crash, in the five days of mourning declared by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

During the event, the Minister of the Interior, Ahmed Vahidi, He stated that if the incident had occurred in any other country, the government would have faced a “very bleak future,” but Iran “will overcome this event without problems.” “Iranians mourn the death of a beloved, popular, humble president” and of the Foreign Minister who “leaves as a legacy active diplomacy at key moments of resistance.” Ayatollah Khamenei is also expected to participate in the funeral services, which will continue this afternoon in the holy city of Qom, 150 kilometers southwest of Tehran. At night, the bodies will be transferred to Tehran, where another funeral will be held tomorrow, led by Khamenei. On Thursday, Raisi’s body will be transferred to South Khorasan, where he was elected as a representative of the Assembly of Experts, the body responsible for electing the supreme leader. Raisi will finally be buried on Thursday night where he was born, in the holy city of Mashhad.

For his part, the interim president, Mohammad Mojber, announced after a meeting of his cabinet that elections will be held on June 28 to elect the new president. Mojber also designated the electoral calendar, with a deadline of June 3 for all presidential candidates to present their candidacy.

While the details of the elections are being finalized, authorities continue to investigate the causes of the accident in the rugged terrain. Russia and Turkey have offered help to Iran to investigate the incident, which took place in a mountainous area and in the middle of a snowstorm. “We believe that the most likely thing is that the signal system was turned off or that the helicopter did not have that signal system,” said the Turkish Minister of Transport, Abdulkadir Uraloglu, in an intervention on the Turkish emergency device activated to find the aircraft. crashed

The death of Raisi, a hardline politician close to Ayatollah Khamenei, has provoked mixed reactions among the Iranian population. His acolytes mourn the loss of a conservative politician, a potential candidate to succeed the current supreme leader. However, part of the population does not forget his past as deputy prosecutor of Tehran, who participated in the “Death Committees”, the executions of more than 5,000 political dissidents over four decades.