In Remembrance of the People’s President

Date: 18 May 2025 - 22:40

News ID: ۱۳۹۷۰۹

By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer

Iran today is commemorating the first martyrdom anniversary of the “people’s president” whose services to the nation will be remembered for decades to come.

Though he was the Chief Executive for only two years and nine months – a year and three months short of his four-year term which most surely the electorate would have voted to extend for another four years if alive – Hojjat al-Islam Seyyed Ibrahim Raisi has left a lasting legacy for the Islamic Republic.

On 19 May 2024, Raisi achieved martyrdom along with his able foreign minister Amir Abollahian, the Friday Prayer Leader of Tabriz, and some staff officials, when his helicopter crashed near the village of Uzi in East Azarbaijan Province.

He was the second president of the Islamic Republic martyred in office, following the martyrdom of Mohammad-Ali Rajaei in the 1981 bombing by agents of global arrogance.

Millions of people attended his funeral as it passed through the cities of Tabriz, Qom and Tehran before burial in Mashhad in the holy shrine of Imam Reza (AS) – the 8th Infallible Heir of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA).

Conscientious people all over the world were shocked and as a mark of respect for Raisi the United Nations Security Council stood for a minute’s silence.

Ever since the victory of the Islamic Revolution and his voluntary services at the battlefronts of the 8-year imposed on Iran in the 1980s by the US through Saddam of the Ba’th minority regime of Iraq, Seyyed Ibrahim Raisi had ably served the nation, mostly in the judiciary where his record is impeccable.

During his 3-year tenure as Chairman of the Astan Quds Razavi, before becoming the Judiciary Chief in 2019, he ably managed the huge sprawling Holy Shrine and its various departments, serving the pilgrims, especially poor people and the dispossessed.

As Head of the Judiciary, he initiated reforms, saw justice take its proper course, and had dormant factories re-opened to speed up national development.

As President Raisi strove to nullify the US sanctions, calling them an opportunity to speed up the economy. He believed in efficient administration saying: “If the government does well, the people will do well.”

He supported development of both the industrial and agricultural sectors with the firm belief that the activation of a resistance economy as the only way to end poverty and deprivation in the country.

He denounced the US stance towards Donald Trump’s breaching of the nuclear accord, and the inability of other signatories to save the pact, making the bold announcement that Iran as part of its legal rights was stepping up enrichment of uranium of its peaceful nuclear programme, with firm rejection of any deviation.

President Raisi was a firm supporter of women’s rights, saying that no one has the right to violate the freedom and rights of girls and women, and “it is incomplete to talk about culture and economy without the role of women, since their rights are God-given.”

He believed in Islamic unity and during his tenure, Iran’s diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia were restored, which the latter had severed it in 2016.

On Palestine, he questioned the irrational attitude of the West towards the so-called holocaust in Europe during World War 2, and said research and investigation should be allowed in this regard.

The only solution to the chronic question of Palestine, Raisi maintained, is removal of Israel and establishment of the Palestinian state “from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea.”