President “Butcher Of Tehran” Raisi Died In Helicopter Crash – But Iranians Rejoice, Dance & Celebrate With Fireworks

Anwar Ibrahim may be “deeply saddened” by the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, whom he admired and had the “honour” of meeting last November. But Iranians do not share the sadness of the Malaysian Prime Minister. Rather, the people of Iran around the world are celebrating and rejoicing – even before the man known as the “Butcher of Tehran” was officially declared dead.

 

Others who perished aboard an American-made Bell helicopter, which Iran purchased in the early 2000s, were Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, a senior cleric from Tabriz, a Revolutionary Guard official, and three crew members. Raisi, however, is not the first Iranian president to die in office.

 

In 1981, a bomb blast killed President Mohammad Ali Rajai as the country plunged into chaos after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. While the Iranian regime praised Raisi for “hard-working and tireless,” even said he had “sacrificed his life for the nation”, many people still remember the brutal man responsible for the execution of thousands of political prisoners in the late 1980s following the Iran-Iraq war.

For his role in the mass execution, Raisi, who won Iran’s 2021 presidential election with the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history, was sanctioned by the United States. The country has also enriched uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels under the man who had continued to arm proxies in the region, including Gaza’s Hamas terrorists, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

 

But the regime’s latest brutality was the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a woman of Iran’s Kurdish minority who was arrested by “morality” police over her allegedly loose headscarf or hijab, before she died in custody three days later. Her death triggered mass protests for months. Iranian authorities responded with live bullets, metal pellets and tear gas, as well as mass arrests.

 

The crackdown by Raisi government saw more than 5,000 people killed and 22,000 detained. A United Nations investigation subsequently found that Amini’s death was caused by Iran’s “physical violence”. Amnesty International revealed that Iranian “security forces unlawfully killed hundreds of protesters, including children” and “blinded some with metal pellets”.

Hence, when news broke that the 63-year-old brutal dictator’s helicopter suffered “hard landing”, many Iranians started unleashing fireworks in the skies of Iran. Jonathan Harounoff, an Iranian journalist and analyst said – “Widespread bureaucratic corruption, woeful economic mismanagement, sky-high inflation, high unemployment. Not to mention tight censorship and severe punishment or death for political dissent.”

 

Women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad happily declared Monday (May 20) as the “World Helicopter Day” and said – “I think this is the only crash in history where everyone is worried if someone survived.” She also tweeted that Iranian social media was flooded with jokes about Ebrahim Raisi’s helicopter crash – a clear indicator how people oppressed by Raisi fought back through humour.

 

When it was confirmed that Raisi was killed, Alinejad excitedly wrote – “Why should I hide my feelings while many young Iranians, especially women who have been wounded during uprisings, are sharing videos of dancing in joy over his death? His regime sent killers to New York to assassinate me, but I’m alive and writing about his death. We Iranians will fight for our freedom, democracy and dignity until we get rid of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dictatorship.”

 

 

 

 

As videos spread on X (formerly Twitter) about Iranians in Iran dancing and celebrating while watching live news on TV for the final confirmation that Raisi is dead, Iranians in London took to the street to show their happiness in front of the Iranian Embassy. Some Iranians mocked and predicted that conspiracy theories would emerge that Raisi was assassinated by Israel’s Mossad national intelligence agency.

 

The best joke that could win an award was that the helicopter pilot’s was actually a Mossad agent named “Eli Copter”. Apparently, the Israeli spy agent was busy training for his mission at a video arcade that he did not realize he was recorded. Tehran has so far not offered any reason for the crash, nor has blamed foreign sabotage the brought down the helicopter in a foggy and mountainous terrain.

 

But there are already conspiracy theories that the CIA has the technology to bring down the 50-year-old U.S.-made Bell 212 helicopter and made it looked like an accident. Another theory was that the Israel’s spy agency was demonstrating its capability in an attempt to send a warning to Tehran and to weaken its proxies, as well as to create chaos or even to spark a civil war in Iran.

 

 

Former Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has nevertheless blamed the United States for the crash, arguing that the American sanctions had resulted in a severe shortage of aircraft parts, leading to poor maintenance of the Bell helicopter thus the crash. However, the crash could be an internal sabotage due to power struggle within Iran itself – suspiciously only one helicopter out of a convoy of three that crashed.

 

While Raisi had been seen as a potential successor, Khamenei’s second son, Mojtaba Khamenei was also said to be the contender for the Iron Throne when the 85-year-old Ayahtollah dies. Raisi’s death would ensure a smooth journey for the Khamenei’s 55-year-old son as part of a plan to maintain the dynasty. For now, Khamenei has named the first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, as caretaker.

 

It could be Karma. Last November, Raisi said – “I hope that God will liberate Palestine as soon as possible, and we witness the final moments of Israel’s existence and celebrate its end.” The Iranian regime wasn’t alone in calling for Israel’s destruction. In December 2023, a Turkish legislator suddenly collapsed and died while delivering a speech that Israel would not escape the wrath of God.

In spite of the condemnation that the Jewish state had killed at least 35,000 Palestinians, a suspicious figures cooked up by Hamas, which has since been halved by the United Nations this month, the God appears to be more interested in punishing Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi rather than President Benjamin Netanyahu. One social media user said – “God created this fog, and now they won’t find him ever again”.

 

Interestingly, when a social media poll asked netizens what they thought was the cause of the crash – technical malfunction, domestic sabotage or external sabotage – most believed that the reason for the crash was domestic sabotage. Some nasty comments included – “Hopefully foxes will eat them all at night, there are also many bears in the area” and “Finally, we got rid of this murderer, pray that he dies.”

 

Sharing the joy were the daughters of anti-regime protestor Minoo Majidi, a 62- year-old mother, who was shot by Iranian forces with 167 shotgun pellets in Kermanshah and died during the Woman-Life-Freedom uprisings in 2022. The two women, who were also brutally attacked by Iran’s security agents, happily posted themselves having a drink and toasting to the fantastic news.

 

 

 

Mersedeh Shahinkar and Sima Moradbeigi, two Iranian women who were also brutally attacked by Iran’s authorities and lost an eye and a right arm respectively, were also celebrating the death of the tyrant. Despite to a heavy presence of armed security forces in several neighbourhoods, many Iranians stayed awake waiting for “good news to come out of the mountains”, and celebrated secretly.

 

Another man in Tehran said – “I was on my phone all night and when I finally saw the news, I jumped from bed and started dancing. I went to a nearby shop, and it was incredible. The shopkeeper, whom I know, gave me a free cigarette and said – ‘Let’s hope for more crashes like this’.” A shopkeeper in central Isfahan said he experienced a surge in selling sweets on Monday as people “keep coming to celebrate”.

 

- financetwitter

 The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.