According to the news website of Iranian government ‘dolat.ir’, Wednesday Dec. 26 will be a national day of mourning throughout Iran as a mark of respect for the late Chairman of the Expediency Council Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, who passed away last night after a long-standing struggle with cancer.

In a message issued on Tuesday, the Iranian government offered condolences on the demise of Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei, the senior clergymen, seminaries, the honorable nation of Islamic Iran, and the family of the deceased cleric, and declared Wednesday as a national day of mourning. </s> Mourners are paying respect to former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as Iran observes three days of mourning following his death.

Start the conversation, or Read more at Valley Morning Star. </s> Iranians gather for funeral of former leader Rafsanjani

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran is holding an hours-long funeral ceremony for the late Iranian president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, following his death over the weekend at the age of 82.

Thousands of Tehran residents and government officials have gathered on the Tehran University campus, where Rafsanjani's casket is on display. Authorities have declared Tuesday a public holiday so Iranians can commemorate Rafsanjani.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is later to hold prayers by Rafsanjani's casket.

A man weeps during a mourning ceremony for former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died on Sunday after suffering a heart attack, at the Jamaran mosque in north Tehran, Iran, Monday, Jan. 9, 2017. Mourners from all walks of life in Iran ¿ from the country's president to passers-by on the street ¿ paid their respects Monday to the late Iranian leader Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Rafsanjani will be buried in mausoleum of the late leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Rafsanjani, a close aide to both Khomeini and Khamenei, served as president from 1989 to 1997. He was a major supporter of moderate President Hassan Rouhani and served as a go-between for reformers seeking outreach to the world and hard-liners.

Front pages of the Monday, Jan. 9, 2017, edition of Iranian newspapers, published with pictures of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died on Sunday after suffering a heart attack. Newspapers in Iran published front-page photographs of Rafsanjani, while state television aired archival clips of his comments and speeches. Mourners from all walks of life in Iran - from the country's president to passers-by on the street - paid their respects to him. The country is observing three days of mourning. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) </s> " Iran is holding an hours-long funeral ceremony for the late Iranian president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, following his death over the weekend at the age of 82. Thousands of Tehran residents and government officials have gathered on the Tehran University campus, where Rafsanjani's casket is on display. Authorities have declared Tuesday a public holiday so Iranians can commemorate Rafsanjani.

Start the conversation, or Read more at The New Zealand Herald. </s> Majlis (Iran’s Parliament), which came under a terror attack recently, is hosting a funeral ceremony for the victims of the incident, and another concomitant one, which targeted Imam Khomeini’s Mausoleum.

The Friday event was attended by the heads of Iran’s Executive, Legislative and Judiciary Branches, President Hassan Rouhani, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, and Judiciary Chief Sadeq Amoli-Larijani respectively.

Also joining the ceremony were government ministers, and Ayatollah Mohammad Mohammadi-Golpayegani, the head of the office of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

People take part in a funeral ceremony held in northeastern Iranian city of Bojnord on June 9, 2017 for the victims of a terrorist attack in Tehran. (Photo by IRNA)

Others included foreign ambassadors, and survivors of the Wednesday attacks, who were holding up pictures of the victims.

Addressing the ceremony, the parliament chief said, “Today is a hard day for the Iranian nation. Farewell to dear ones, who were sadly martyred.”

“The terrorists fell short of their [main] aim” and then started to blindly target civilians and employees, he said.

From left to right, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (4th) stands next to Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani and Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani during a funeral held in parliament, June 9, 2017. (Photo by IRNA)

Their targeting the locations, Larijani said, indicated their concentration on the “axes of the Iranian people’s religious democracy.”

Ayatollah Mohammadi-Golpayegani also delivered the Leader’s message of condolences to the event.

Read more:

Speaking on the sidelines of the event, the Iranian president said the terror assaults “were an act of revenge against democracy,” adding that “whenever the nation scores a victory, ill-wishers work to deliver a blow to the country and the nation.”

He was referring to the big turnout of Iranians in the May 19 presidential elections.

Rouhani added that it is not the first time the nation witnesses such acts of terror, stressing that “people will find their own path to national goals and unity, and the nation will undoubtedly emerge victorious.”

A funeral procession also started for the victims after the Friday Prayers in the capital.

Large groups of people are taking part in the ceremony, chanting slogans against Saudi Arabia, the US and Israel, whom they blame for supporting terrorism.

At least 17 people were killed and more than 50 injured in Tehran on Wednesday, when gunmen attacked Iran’s Parliament (Majlis) and the Mausoleum of the late Founder of the Islamic Republic Imam Khomeini.

Read more:

The Daesh Takfiri terrorist group claimed responsibility for the near-simultaneous assaults.

On Thursday, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry released the names of the five terrorists who were killed after carrying out the deadly attacks in Tehran.

Local police in Iran’s western province of Kermanshah also said two people have been arrested in connection with the double attacks, while over 90 handguns have been discovered during a security operation in Ravansar County, the Tasnim news agency reported. </s> A man weeps during a mourning ceremony for former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died on Sunday after suffering a heart attack, at the Jamaran mosque in north Tehran, Iran, Monday, Jan. 9, 2017.

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran is holding an hours-long funeral ceremony for the late Iranian president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, following his death over the weekend at the age of 82.

Thousands of Tehran residents and government officials have gathered on the Tehran University campus, where Rafsanjani's casket is on display. Authorities have declared Tuesday a public holiday so Iranians can commemorate Rafsanjani.

 

 Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will hold prayers by Rafsanjani's casket.

Rafsanjani will be buried in mausoleum of the late leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Rafsanjani, a close aide to both Khomeini and Khamenei, served as president from 1989 to 1997. He was a major supporter of moderate President Hassan Rouhani and served as a go-between for reformers seeking outreach to the world and hard-liners. </s> TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran is holding an hours-long funeral ceremony for the late Iranian president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, following his death over the weekend at the age of 82.

Thousands of Tehran residents and government officials have gathered on the Tehran University campus, where Rafsanjani’s casket is on display. Authorities have declared Tuesday a public holiday so Iranians can commemorate Rafsanjani.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is later to hold prayers by Rafsanjani’s casket.

Rafsanjani will be buried in mausoleum of the late leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Rafsanjani, a close aide to both Khomeini and Khamenei, served as president from 1989 to 1997. He was a major supporter of moderate President Hassan Rouhani and served as a go-between for reformers seeking outreach to the world and hard-liners. </s> Funerals began Friday morning in the Iranian capital for 17 victims of two attacks this week by Islamic State militants, the first time in recent memory Sunni jihadists managed to strike the heart of the Shiite Islamic Republic.

Six attackers died — including five men and a woman who blew herself up — and several were detained in connection with the attacks at Iran’s parliament and the tomb of Iran’s revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. More than 50 people were wounded in the morning attack on parliament, which was in session.

According to an Iranian government statement, the male attackers had returned to the country last summer after fighting for Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqah, Syria, and had “intended to carry out terrorist operations in religious cities.” The statement did not say if the attackers were Iranian citizens.

Reza Seifollahi, deputy chief of the Supreme National Security Council, told the independent newspaper Shargh that the male attackers were Iranian.

Before a funeral procession at parliament early Friday for guards killed there, Iran's supreme leader said the attacks will add to Iranians’ hatred of the United States and Saudi Arabia. In the wake of the attacks, Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard also released a statement implying that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia were to blame.

Khamenei said the Wednesday attacks, "Will not damage the Iranian nation's determination and the obvious result is nothing except an increase in hate for the governments of the United States and their stooges in the region like Saudi."

Saudi Arabia has denied responsibility for the attacks.

Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, also spoke out ahead of the funerals.

“Daesh is an international danger," he said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

Mourners gathered outside the parliament complex Friday to watch the funeral procession, which followed a downtown candlelight vigil overnight.

Mohammad Rasouli, 66, sitting on the ground with a group across the street, said it was his duty to attend the procession and an afternoon funeral expected at 2 p.m. during weekly prayers.

"I came with my friends to show our solidarity with our supreme leader and nation. From here we go to Friday prayers. If we do not go there, Daesh will be emboldened," he said.

During the procession through parliament, the heads of Iran’s executive, legislative and judiciary branches all paid their respects, including President Hasan Rouhani, Larjani and the head of the judiciary, Sadeq Larijani Amoli.

Parliamentary staff who survived the attack also attended the procession under tight security. They stood alongside friends and family of the victims, who dressed in black. </s> DUBAI (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of Iranians massed in central Tehran on Tuesday for the funeral of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an influential figurehead of the Islamic Republic whose pragmatism led to a rift with Iran’s supreme leader.

Rafsanjani, who died on Sunday aged 82, was buried next to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979 who founded its system of theocratic rule.

Rafsanjani’s policies of economic liberalisation and better relations with the West attracted fierce supporters and equally fierce critics during his life.

While many of his opponents turned out to honour him, and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stressed their close bond, what was intended by the state as a show of unity was clouded by the chants of thousands opposition supporters, as well as the absence of reformist ex-president Mohammad Khatami.

An eyewitness told Reuters on the phone from Tehran: “Some were chanting slogans asking for political prisoners to be released, some hardliners were shouting ‘Death to America!’. But they didn’t clash. Everyone was respectful.”

Some of the chants called for the release of former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi and of Mehdi Karoubi, a cleric and former speaker of parliament who lost the disputed 2009 presidential election to incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Both men refused to accept the results of that election and were placed under house arrest while Rafsanjani, who had backed them, was politically isolated along with his family.

KHATAMI ABSENT

Two separate sources said Hashemi’s daughter Faezeh, jailed for six months in 2012 on charges of anti-government propaganda, had told people at the funeral that Khatami had been banned from attending. On state television’s live coverage, the opposition chants were drowned out by solemn music.

As a leading power-broker, Rafsanjani helped Khamenei to secure Iran’s most powerful position, that of supreme leader, after Khomeini’s death in 1989, and won election as president himself a few months later.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iran's President Hassan Rouhani touch the coffin of former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani during his funeral ceremony in Tehran, Iran January 10, 2017. Leader.ir/Handout via REUTERS

However, their friendship gradually turned into rivalry as Rafsanjani, who continued to wield enormous influence even after his eight years as president ended, sided with reformists who promoted greater freedom, while Khamenei interpreted the values of the Islamic Republic much more conservatively.

In his condolence message, Khamenei said political differences had never been able to “entirely break up” their nearly 60 years of friendship.

Streets were filled overnight with billboards that showed a picture of the two men smiling and chatting as close friends.

“No one will be like Hashemi for me,” the billboards quoted Khamenei as saying, using Rafsanjani’s first family name.

KHAMENEI’S PRAYER

It was Khamenei who said the final prayer over Rafsanjani’s body in the University of Tehran courtyard where the late president delivered many of his sermons during Friday prayers.

Politicians, military commanders and religious figures from all camps stood behind him.

President Hassan Rouhani, the head of parliament, the head of the judiciary and senior Khamenei advisers stood in the first line at the service, while cabinet ministers and the deceased leader’s relatives filled the rows behind them.

Rafsanjani’s body, sealed in a metal coffin with his white turban on top, was then brought in procession down Revolution Street in central Tehran, where hundreds of thousands of people came out in cold winter weather to pay tribute.

Among those attending were Revolutionary Guards Commander Qassem Soleimani, leading Iranian Sunni cleric Molavi Abdolhamid Ismaeelzahi, several of Khomeini’s grandsons and even a number of Iranian movie stars.

Slideshow (7 Images)

Rafsanjani’s death is a blow to Rouhani, whom he had backed in the 2013 presidential election and who now faces re-election having resolved Iran’s long nuclear standoff with the West but shown little of the economic payoff that he had promised.

Rouhani’s deputy chief of staff, Hamid Aboutalebi, tweeted: “The glorious presence of people of Tehran in the funeral and their tearful farewell show that they will never forget Rafsanjani’s moderate thoughts and his allies.”

Rafsanjani was a member of the Assembly of Experts, the clerical body that selects the supreme leader. His absence from that debate, whenever it happens, means the chances of a pragmatist succeeding Khamenei are reduced.
The Iranian government declares three days of national mourning following the death of the former president and one of the key figures in the Islamic Republic.