Death and state funeral of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

On 8 January 2017, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the fourth President of Iran and the country's Chairman of Expediency Discernment Council, died at the age of 82 after suffering a heart attack. He was transferred unconscious to a hospital in Tajrish, north Tehran. Attempts at cardiopulmonary resuscitation for more than an hour trying to revive him were unsuccessful and he died at 19:30 local time (UTC+3:30).
Iranian government observed a national mourning period of 3 days. Rafsanjani's body lay in state at Jamaran Huseinieh, near where his house was located. Thousands of the people and officials from Iran and other countries visited his body at Jamaran. A state funeral was held on 10 January 2017 which was attended by millions of people and his body was buried at the Mausoleum of Ruhollah Khomeini hours later.
Funeral events.
Lying in state.
Rafsanjani's body lay in state at the Jamaran Huseinieh in north Tehran hours after his death from 9 to 10 January 2017. Approximately thousands mourners viewed his body over the two days. The crowds grew larger each day and thousands who queued on the final day could not be accommodated and were turned away. The ceremony was also attended by Rafsanjani's family, Iranian officials like President Hassan Rouhani and his cabinet, parliament members and its chairman Ali Larijani, Tehran Friday prayer Imam Mohammed Emami-Kashani, Chief of Staff for the Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Bagheri and Quds Forces commander Major General Qasem Soleimani, Ruhollah Khomeini's survivors (specially Hassan Khomeini), former parliament chairman and a close friend Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, former MP and presidential election rival Ahmad Tavakoli, former government members (Akbar Torkan, Mohsen Rafighdoost, Ahmad Madani, Abdullah Nouri, Manouchehr Mottaki etc.), public figures like cinema director Ebrahim Hatamikia, former national team and Persepolis head coach Ali Parvin, singer Majid Akhshabi and some foreign figures which included Iraqis Ibrahim al-Jafari and Ammar al-Hakim, as well as Iraq's ambassadors to Iran.
Place of burial.
Hours after his death, his office announced that a state funeral will be held on 11 January in University of Tehran, with the place of burial being Mausoleum of Ruhollah Khomeini. It was previously announced he will be buried at Fatima Masumeh Shrine in Qom, but his family decided to change the place of burial.
State funeral.
Thousands of the people and government officials attended the ceremony and Ali Khamenei performed the ritual prayer for the deceased (Salat al-Mayyit) in his funeral. Some foreign leaders like Afghanistan's Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, Kuwait's Deputy Prime Minister Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Sabah, Turkeministan Deputy Prime Minister Raşit Meredow, Iraqi foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Georgian foreign minister Mikheil Janelidze, Azerbaijan parliament chair Ogtay Asadov, Malian national assembly president Issaka Sidibé, British Ambassador Nicholas Hopton, Lebanon's Nabih Berri and Armenian parliament speaker Galust Sahakyan also attended the event. The truck carrying Rafsanjani's coffin topped with his trademark white turban inched down Enqelab Street, one of the capital's main thoroughfares. Rafsanjani was buried next to the former supreme leader Ruhollah Khomeini.
There have been mentioned diverse statistics concerning the present population in the funeral, and it is estimated from 330,000 to 2,500,000. According to BBC: "Tens of thousands of Iranians attended the funeral of the former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjan"; also, according to Iranian TV and governor of Tehran, 2.5 million attended his funeral. It is also can be named as the third largest funeral in Iran; namely after Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeini's funeral who was estimated 10 (to 17) million participants, and Qasem Soleimani's funeral with 7 million in Tehran as well as other cities.
Memorial services.
Iran.
The Office of the Supreme Leader of Iran announced that a memorial service will be held in Beit Rahbari by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on 11 January in memorial of Hashemi Rafsanjani. It was attended by the survivors of Rafsanjani and governmental and foreign officials. Another memorial service was also held on the same day by the Rafsanjani family in the mosque of Azad University central building. Another ceremonies was held in different cities like Qom and Rafsanjani on 12 and 13 January. A ceremony was also held at Imam Reza Shrine The 7th Day (Haftom) ceremony was also held at Mausoleum of Ruhollah Khomeini on 15 January which crowds of the people attending.
Foreign states.
Memorial services was held by Iran's embassy at Baghdad, Kabul, London, Beirut, Tokyo, Ankara and other cities.
A memorial service in honour of Rafsanjani was held on 14 January 2017 in Najaf's Imam Ali shrine which was attended by key Shiite clerics.
Reactions.
Iran.
Political parties.
His death is described as a "blow" to the reformist movement of Iran. He headed the Expediency Council, a body which is intended to resolve disputes between the parliament and a hardline watchdog body, the Guardian Council.
Controversies.
The funeral veered slightly off script when groups of mourners started shouting opposition slogans. The authorities were forced to raise the volume on the loudspeakers playing lamentation songs after some in the crowds took up cries of using name of former presidential candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who has been under house arrest since 2011. Some of the chants were aimed at Russia, Iran's ally in the Syrian conflict. Video clips on social media showed mourners shouting "Death to Russia" (which was also shouted during the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev became the first foreign leader to congratulate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his re-election) and "the Russian Embassy is the den of espionage," as they passed the embassy's complex in the heart of Tehran. People also called for the release of hunger strikers in Iranian prisons.
State television, broadcasting the funeral live, airbrushed the protests, which were nevertheless allowed to proceed without police intervention.