Millions join funeral procession for Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei

A crowd of millions assembled on Monday for the funeral procession of Iran’s assassinated supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.The scale and depth of the march, however engineered, represents an extraordinary turnaround for a country that only seven months ago was gripped by street protests at which thousands of people were killed by government security forces. Many will say the assembly was a monument to a misconceived war launched on Iran by Donald Trump in February.The throng moved from east to west, through Tehran from Revolution Square to Azadi Square, after the two-day funeral of the supreme leader and members of his family in the Grand Mosalla mosque in Tehran. The mourners wore black clothing and carried flags that bore the slogan “We will rise”; others held aloft the flag of Iran and pictures of Khamenei.The Tehran metro was packed as people attempted to join the march. They chanted: “Mourning is mourning today, mourning day is today. Martyr Khamenei is before God today.”Mourners in Ferdowsi Square, Tehran. Photograph: Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty ImagesAt the funeral on Sunday, “Kill Trump” was chalked on the stage by the mourners who throughout the ceremony expressed a desire for revenge and personal grief.Khamenei was killed by Israeli bombs in February in an attempt to destabilise and ultimately topple the government.The funeral procession was expected to last between 10 and 12 hours, depending on the numbers participating. It was always likely to draw the largest crowds because only limited numbers could enter the huge Mosalla mosque at any one time.A sea of mourners carrying flags surround the truck carrying the body Khamenei and his family. Photograph: Vahid Salemi/APThe funeral prayer (Salat al-Janazah) is performed in Tehran. Photograph: Farnood/Sipa/ShutterstockSenior political and military officials at the ceremony. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesOn Sunday, the entire Iranian leadership, depleted by successive Israeli assassinations, turned out for the morning prayer with the one exception of the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late supreme leader and now his appointed successor.Iranian officials said Khamenei’s absence was not due to wounds sustained in Israel’s attack on the presidential building but to concerns for his safety. However, his three grieving brothers attended.In a feat of organisation by the state authorities and the volunteer civic army that fed and housed the mourners, no one was killed – unlike at previous state-linked funerals that rapidly descended into chaos, including that of the previous supreme leader.President Masoud Pezeshkian, who praised the mourners, said: ‘The world sees the truth.’ Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesThe Iranian president praised the crowds’ behaviour and expressed hope that the images emerging from Iran would force the west to reflect on its determination to change Iran. Masoud Pezeshkian said: “If I want to say something, only a few Persian speakers will understand it, but the behaviour and presence of the people are understood by the whole world.”Rejecting Trump’s claim that the grief seen at the funeral had been “fake tears”, Pezeshkian said: “This greatness, these tears that flow from the eyes of girls, men, and children, is not something that can be created by order. Tears arise from the pain and sorrow that surges within a person, and the world sees this truth.”More than 300 foreign journalists, in addition to foreign reporters based in Iran, had been granted rare visas to report on the funeral and the display of national cohesion.Mourners observe the Islamic funeral prayer. Photograph: Farnood/Sipa/ShutterstockPezeshkian, a reformist elected two years ago who has put emphasis on building consensus within Iran’s political elite, said: “I do not accept the interpretation of farewell. It is a covenant for continuing on the path. This is not actually a farewell but rather a pact to continue on the path.“By entering this war, the enemy disrupted the geography of the region, but in fact it strengthened the unity and cohesion among Muslims and even made the people of the world aware of its human rights claims.”The president accused Israel of perpetrating “all the crimes that are taking place in the region … with the support of the United States and European countries”.