Iran’s Supreme Leader Presides Over Funeral for President and Others Killed in Helicopter Crash 

Iranians hold portraits of late President Ebrahim Raisi as they mourn during a funeral processions ceremony in Tehran, Iran, 22 May 2024. (EPA)
Iranians hold portraits of late President Ebrahim Raisi as they mourn during a funeral processions ceremony in Tehran, Iran, 22 May 2024. (EPA)
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Iran’s Supreme Leader Presides Over Funeral for President and Others Killed in Helicopter Crash 

Iranians hold portraits of late President Ebrahim Raisi as they mourn during a funeral processions ceremony in Tehran, Iran, 22 May 2024. (EPA)
Iranians hold portraits of late President Ebrahim Raisi as they mourn during a funeral processions ceremony in Tehran, Iran, 22 May 2024. (EPA)

Iran's supreme leader presided over a funeral Wednesday for the country's late President Ebrahim Raisi, foreign minister and others killed in a helicopter crash, as tens of thousands later followed a procession of their caskets through the capital, Tehran. 

Ali Khamenei held the service at Tehran University, the caskets of the dead draped in Iranian flags with their pictures on them. After a prayer, he left and the crowd inside rushed to the front, reaching out to touch the coffins. Iran's acting president, Mohammad Mokhber, stood nearby and openly wept during the service. 

People then carried the coffins out on their shoulders, with chants outside of "Death to America!" They loaded them onto a semitruck trailer for a procession through downtown Tehran to Azadi, or "Freedom," Square, where Raisi gave speeches in the past. 

In attendance were top leaders of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, one of the country's major power centers. Also on hand was Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, the militant group that Iran has armed and supported during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war raging in the Gaza Strip. Before the funeral, Haniyeh spoke and an emcee led the crowd in the chant: "Death to Israel!" 

"I come in the name of the Palestinian people, in the name of the resistance factions of Gaza ... to express our condolences," Haniyeh told those gathered. 

He also recounted meeting Raisi in Tehran during Ramadan, the holy Muslim fasting month, and heard the president say the Palestinian issue remains the key one of the Muslim world. 

The Muslim world "must fulfil their obligations to the Palestinians to liberate their land," Haniyeh said, recounting Raisi's words. He also described Raisi calling the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war, which saw 1,200 people killed and 250 others taken hostage, an "earthquake in the heart of the Zionist entity." The war since has seen 35,000 Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip and hundreds of others in the West Bank in Israeli operations. 

Also expected to attend services in Tehran were Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and a delegation from the Taliban of Afghanistan, including their Foreign Minister Amir Khan Mutaqqi. Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani also flew in for the ceremony, along with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. 

Even Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry traveled to Tehran, despite diplomatic relations between the countries being severed after the 1979 revolution. Egypt and Iran have recently discussed reestablishing ties. 

But notably, none of Iran's living past presidents — other than Khamenei — could be seen in state television footage of the prayers. They include reformist Mohammad Khatami, hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and relative moderate Hassan Rouhani — all individuals who maintain some political cachet within Iran's tightly controlled political system. 

Authorities offered no explanation for their absence from the event, which comes weeks ahead of a planned June 28 presidential election. As of now, there's no clear favorite for the position among Iran's political elite — particularly no one who is a Shiite cleric, like Raisi. 

Iran’s theocracy declared five days of mourning over Sunday's crash, encouraging people to attend the public mourning sessions. Typically, government employees and schoolchildren attend such events en masse, while others take part out of patriotism, curiosity or to witness historic events. 

For Iran’s Shiite theocracy, mass demonstrations have been crucial to demonstrating the legitimacy of their leadership since millions thronged the streets of Tehran to welcome Khomeini in 1979 during the revolution, and also attended his funeral 10 years later. 

An estimated 1 million turned out in 2020 for processions for the late Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was slain in a US drone strike in Baghdad. In that ceremony, Khamenei openly wept over Soleimani's casket alongside Raisi. On Wednesday, Khamenei appeared composed, though he later hugged family members of the dead on his way out. 

Whether Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and others draw the same crowd remains in question, particularly as Raisi died in a helicopter crash, won his office in the lowest-turnout presidential election in the country’s history and presided over sweeping crackdowns on all dissent. 

Prosecutors already have warned people over showing any public signs of celebrating his death and a heavy security force presence has been seen on the streets of Tehran since the crash. 

Raisi, 63, had been discussed as a possible successor for Iran’s supreme leader, the 85-year-old Khamenei. The only other person suggested was Khamenei’s 55-year-old son, Mojtaba. However, concerns have been raised over the position going to a family member, particularly after the revolution overthrew the hereditary Pahlavi monarchy of the shah. 

Meanwhile, an Iranian official offered a new accounting of Sunday's crash, further fueling the theory bad weather led to it. Gholamhossein Esmaili, who traveled in one of the two other helicopters in Raisi's entourage, told state TV that weather had been fine when the aircraft took off. But Raisi's helicopter disappeared into heavy clouds and the others couldn't reach the aircraft by radio, forcing them to land at a nearby copper mine. 

Neither Amir-Abdollahian or a bodyguard on board responded to calls, but Tabriz Friday prayer leader Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem somehow answered two mobile phone calls, Esmaili said. It wasn't clear why Iran then couldn't track the phone's signal. 

"When we found the location of the accident, the conditions of the bodies indicated that Raisi and other companions had died instantly but Ale-Hashem ... (died) after several hours," he said. 



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."