The bodies of the Iranian President, Ebrahim Raisi and the other victims of Sunday’s helicopter crash have been taken by plane to the holy city of Qom and then to Tehran.
The days-long funeral arrangements for Raisi kicked off on Tuesday, May 21, 2024, with a procession in Tabriz.
Funeral ceremonies for Iranian state dignitaries occur over “an extended period of time in several locations.”
Raisi and the country’s Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, along with other officials, were found dead Monday hours after their helicopter crashed in fog in mountainous terrain, with no cause for the incident so far offered by Iranian authorities.
Tuesday marked the second of five days of public mourning announced by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Thousands of people walked through the streets of the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz in a funeral procession for President Ebrahim Raisi and seven members of his entourage after their deaths in a helicopter crash.
Raisi’s body was taken from Tabriz to the city of Qom, a city in central Iran of great religious significance, for another ceremony before being moved to the capital, Tehran.
On Wednesday, May 22, 2024, morning, a larger ceremony will take place in Tehran, with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei expected to lead the prayers and foreign dignitaries in attendance.
The body of Raisi will then be taken to Southern Khorasan province on Thursday, May 23, 2024, morning before arriving in his hometown of Mashhad, where the burial is to take place on Thursday evening after funerary rites.
In a speech in Tabriz on Tuesday, Iranian Interior Minister, Ahmad Vahidi said that Raisi and Amir-Abdollahian “set a model for brave service and diplomacy,” pointing to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
“Who can forget Raisi’s heartfelt speeches in defense of Gaza?” Vahidi said.
He added that “in any other country this incident would have a very dark future, but with the supreme leader’s presence and the peace he conveyed in his message, we will easily handle these issues.”
An investigation into the cause of Raisi’s death is under way.
Currently, there has been no suggestion that the crash was an act of sabotage, with the focus on the extreme weather conditions at the time, combined with challenging terrain and possible technical issues.
Questions have been raised as to whether Raisi and the others on board should have been travelling on a two-blade Bell 212 believed to have been decades old.
Foreign sanctions on Iran dating back to the 1979 revolution, and subsequently over its nuclear programme and its backing of the so-called “axis of resistance”, have made it difficult for the country to obtain aircraft parts or new aircraft.
Questions have also been raised as to why the aircraft was allowed to take off in adverse weather conditions which included a thick layer of fog.
Provisional Election Timetable Released
A provisional timetable for the elections that includes the possibility of allowing electronic voting in Tehran, where turnout has been collapsing in recent years, was published.
Snap election is provisionally scheduled for June 28, 2024.
In the unlikely event of no single candidate winning a majority of votes in what is likely to be a highly managed election, a runoff would be held on July 5, 2024.
The new President will be critical not only to Iran’s future relations with the west but also in guiding the debate about the eventual successor to the 85-year-old supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
The 88-strong Assembly of Experts, the body that upon the death of the supreme leader decides the successor, met on Tuesday to elect a 93-year-old cleric, Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani, as Chair.
A seat set aside for Raisi was filled with flowers and a photograph of him.
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