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Three days of public mourning in Tehran for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ended with one of the largest gatherings in recent years as a funeral cortège carrying his coffin and those of four family members moved along a 10 kilometre route slowed by crowds according to BBC News. Aerial images showed loyalists filling the city’s main arteries while chanting death to America and death to Israel with many waving red flags that symbolised martyrdom and calls for vengeance the report added. President Masoud Pezeshkian told the mourners that tears arose from the pain and sorrow that surges within a person rebutting US President Donald Trump’s assertion that the displays amounted to fake tears BBC News reported.
The event which Iranian state media described as the event of the century featured a colossal statue of a clenched fist erected over Enqelab Square to signal defiance the BBC correspondent noted from Tehran. All five who died were killed in Israeli American air strikes on 28 February with the smallest coffin belonging to Khamenei’s 14 month old granddaughter the reporting detailed. Organisers framed Khamenei as a transcendent religious and political figure whose authority reached across the Shia Muslim world a Tehran University research fellow told the outlet.
The Secretariat of the Supreme National Security Council issued an official statement declaring resistance against adversaries and revenge for the blood of Iran’s martyred leader as the primary state sanctioned themes of the procession IranWire reported. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf Iran’s chief negotiator told crowds that the nation must rise up and convey its call for bloodshed to the world so that the world knows that the honourable and noble nation of Iran will not remain silent in the face of oppression and arrogance the Guardian reported. A messaging app circulated by authorities carried slogans such as our revenge is inevitable and they will pay hard while one mourner identified only as Mojtaba stated soon very soon you will see signs of revenge at the top of the White House and soon the colour of the White House will be the colour of my red flag according to BBC News.
Mojtaba Khamenei the 56 year old son of the late leader was elected supreme leader on 8 March but has not appeared in public since the strikes that killed his father Sky News reported. He served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps during the Iran Iraq war and has been linked to the suppression of past protests though he has largely maintained a low profile without holding government office or delivering public speeches the report noted. His appointment under wartime conditions prioritised institutional continuity and ideological cohesion over other potential candidates according to an analysis by Iran Analytica.
Some Iranians stayed away from the procession citing economic hardship with inflation running at roughly 80 percent and the memory of widespread anti government protests that erupted in January the BBC correspondent observed. Data from the Statistical Center of Iran placed monthly inflation at 7.9 percent in the period covering late December to late January with food prices surging nearly 90 percent year on year a New Humanitarian investigation found. The Central Bank of Iran separately confirmed that point to point inflation had climbed to 77.2 percent by early June the highest level since the Second World War according to reporting by the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
The funeral unfolded against a backdrop of stalled peace negotiations between Iran and the United States that have shown little progress since the February conflict the New York Times reported. A Wall Street Journal assessment found that the processions were designed in part to confer renewed legitimacy on Khamenei’s worldview and to signal defiance even as talks continue. IranWire noted the paradox of aggressive revenge rhetoric emerging just weeks after the Supreme National Security Council voted to pursue direct negotiations with Washington and sign an interim agreement.
