Iran’s rulers mourn Raisi, as opponents celebrate his death in helicopter crash

VOA – As Iran’s Islamist rulers observe five days of mourning for the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a Sunday helicopter crash in the country’s northwest, many Iranians who oppose the Islamic Republic have been celebrating Raisi’s demise at home, abroad and on social media.

Raisi, who died in the crash at age 63, was reviled by opponents of Iran’s authoritarian Islamist government for his pivotal role as a prosecutor who ordered mass killings of political prisoners in 1988 and for using his presidential powers to violently suppress a women’s rights protest movement that erupted nationwide in late 2022 and continued into 2023.

Videos received by VOA’s Persian service on Monday and deemed credible appear to show people in different regions of Iran sharing sweets and chocolates to celebrate Raisi’s death.

In one video sent to VOA Persian TV host Masih Alinejad and published by her on social media, a woman whose face is not shown carries a tray of sweet pastries in a public park and offers them to another woman whom she approaches nearby.

In the ensuing brief conversation, one woman jokes about wanting to know the occasion for the pastries, while the other says they both know the occasion, in an apparent cryptic reference to Raisi’s death.

VOA cannot independently verify the circumstances of the celebratory videos as it is barred from reporting inside Iran.

Iranian opponents of the Islamic Republic in the diaspora engaged in more open celebratory activities outside Iranian diplomatic missions in major European cities on Monday.

Videos posted to social media and shared with VOA Persian showed Iranians dancing to music in London, Copenhagen, The Hague, and Hamburg.

The Islamic Republic’s Iranian critics also flooded social media with sarcasm and mockery of Raisi and his allies, using the Persian hashtag “helicotlet,” a combination of the words helicopter and cutlet. Many Iranian social media users opposed to Islamist rule celebrated the 2020 killing of top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in a U.S. missile strike in Baghdad by referring to him as a cutlet.

The head of Iran’s cyber police warned against that type of social media activity Monday, saying “we are carefully monitoring cyberspace” and advising citizens that “in the current sensitive situation” they should “refrain” from publishing content that “provokes” public sentiments.

VOA’s Persian service contributed to this report.