DUBAI (TIP): 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 protégé 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 involved 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.
Thursday 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 reached 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 long has been associated with Shiite pilgrimmage. A hadith attributed to Islam’s Prophet Mohammad says anyone with sorrow or sin will be relieved through visiting there.
In 2016, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei appointed Raisi to run the Imam Reza charity foundation, which manages a vast conglomerate of businesses and endowments in Iran, as well as oversees the shrine. It is one of many bonyads, or charitable foundations, fueled by donations or assets seized after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. (AP)
Tag: Ebrahim Raisi
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Iran prepares to bury late president, foreign minister and others killed in helicopter crash
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China’s leader Xi Jinping to make state visit to Iran
BEIJING (TIP): Chinese President Xi Jinping will make a state visit to Iran, Beijing’s foreign ministry said February 16, as a three-day trip to China by the Islamic republic’s leader drew to a close.
Beijing and Tehran reinforced their strong economic ties in 2021 by signing a 25-year “strategic cooperation pact” but have been under pressure from Western nations over their positions on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Iran is also under strict US sanctions for its nuclear programme. Xi “gladly accepted” an invitation by President Ebrahim Raisi to make a trip to Iran, both countries said in a joint statement issued on Thursday. No date was given for the visit, which would be Xi’s first to the Middle Eastern nation since 2016.
Iran agreed with major world powers in 2015 to rein in its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of punishing sanctions. But then-President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions, resulting in Tehran rolling back its commitments. Efforts to revive the agreement have stalled for months, and the US and Israel continue to accuse Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons — a claim it denies.
Beijing and Tehran on Thursday called for an end to sanctions, blaming current tensions on Washington’s “unilateral withdrawal” from the deal. “Both sides emphasised that lifting sanctions and ensuring Iran’s economic dividends are an important component of the agreement,” they said in the joint communique.
“All relevant sanctions should be fully abolished in a verifiable manner, promoting the agreement’s full and effective implementation,” they said.
‘Solidarity’
Beijing rolled out the red carpet for Raisi’s arrival on Tuesday, with the Iranian leader trailed by a large trade and finance delegation in the first such visit for over 20 years.
Xi later hailed China’s “solidarity and cooperation” with Iran “in the face of the current complex changes in the world, times, and history,” Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Beijing “supports Iran in safeguarding national sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and national dignity… and in resisting unilateralism and hegemonism,” Xi said, according to CCTV.
China “opposes external forces interfering in Iran’s internal affairs and undermining Iran’s security and stability,” he added.
The two sides signed a number of bilateral cooperation documents in the fields of agriculture, trade, tourism, environmental protection, health, disaster relief, culture and sport, CCTV reported. (AFP)