Iranian authorities have declared a series of public holidays across multiple provinces for the funeral of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in Israeli-American strikes on 28 February. Government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani announced that Tehran province will close on 4 and 5 July, with a nationwide shutdown on 6 July for the main procession. The holy city of Qom will observe a holiday on 7 July, and Khorasan Razavi province, including Mashhad, will close on 9 July for the burial. A memorial convoy will also pass through Iraq on 8 July. According to French press reports, the mayor of Tehran has said that up to 20 million mourners are expected.

The announcement has been accompanied by a public warning from Ali Motahari, a former deputy speaker of parliament, who recalled fatal crowd crushes during past funerals of senior figures. In a note carried by Iranian news agencies, Motahari cited the deaths of more than 70 people at the 2020 ceremony for Qassem Soleimani in Kerman, and described his own near-suffocation at the University of Tehran during the rites for Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Soleimani. He also referred to the 1989 funeral of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, where a crush exposed part of the body. Motahari urged organisers to adopt methods used in other countries, placing the coffin in a protected area and allowing mourners to file past in order. Deputy Interior Minister Aliakbar Pourjamshidian, who heads the national funeral committee, said all main streets of Tehran and the entire city of Mashhad would be used to accommodate crowds, but did not directly address the specific safety measure requested.

The funeral rites, originally planned for March, were postponed because of the war that erupted after the strikes that killed Khamenei and other officials. His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was named Supreme Leader in early March but has not appeared in public since, communicating only through attributed statements, French media report. The start of the Tehran ceremonies on 4 July coincides with the United States’ Independence Day, a detail noted by Le Figaro. Iranian officials have also highlighted a grassroots initiative called “every house a mawkib,” in which residents open their homes to out-of-town mourners, a practice the government spokesperson described as a manifestation of the Islamic Revolution’s popular character.

Viewed from Tehran, the multi-city funeral serves both as a display of national unity and a projection of continuity for the Islamic Republic’s leadership amid an ongoing conflict. The extensive public holidays will temporarily halt commercial and administrative activity in the capital and other key provinces. The security challenge remains acute: the combination of anticipated massive crowds, heightened emotions, and the precedent of past disasters places pressure on organisers to prevent a repeat of lethal overcrowding. The burial in Mashhad, home to the shrine of Imam Reza, is set to conclude the official mourning period on 9 July.