Iran prepares to bury late President, Foreign Minister and others killed in helicopter crash

Iran prepares to bury late President Raisi at Imam Reza Shrine, amid subdued public response and political uncertainty.

Iran on May 23 prepared to inter its late President at the holiest site for Shiite Muslims in the Islamic Republic, a final sign of respect for a protege of Iran’s supreme leader killed in a helicopter crash earlier this week.

President Ebrahim Raisi’s burial at the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad caps days of processionals through much of Iran, seeking to bolster the country’s theocracy after the crash killing him, the country’s Foreign Minister and six others.

However, the services have not drawn the same crowd as those who gathered for services for Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in 2020, slain by a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad.

It’s a potential sign of the public’s feelings about Raisi’s presidency that saw the government harshly crack down on all dissent during protests over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, detained for allegedly not wearing her mandatory headscarf to authorities’ liking.

That crackdown, as well as Iran’s struggling economy, have gone unmentioned in the hours of coverage provided by state television and in newspapers. Also never discussed was Raisi’s involvement in the mass execution of an estimated 5,000 dissidents at the end of the Iran-Iraq war.

Prosecutors have warned people against showing any public signs of celebrating Raisi’s death and a heavy security force presence has been seen in Tehran since the crash.

On May 23 morning, thousands in black gathered along a main boulevard in the city of Birjand, Raisi’s hometown in Iran’s South Khorasan Province along the Afghan border. A semitruck bore his casket down the street, with mourners reaching out to touch it and tossing scarves and other items to be placed against it for a blessing. A sign on the truck read, “This is the shrine.” Later, Raisi will be buried at the Imam Reza Shrine, where Shiite Islam’s 8th imam is buried. The region, for long, has been associated with Shiite pilgrimmage. A hadith attributed to Islam’s Prophet Mohammad saysm anyone with sorrow or sin will be relieved through by visiting there.