Ayatollah Taheri Esfahani's funeral procession in Isfahan. Screenshot from YouTube

Thousands of people in Isfahan, Iran took part in funeral procession for Ayatollah Jalal Al-Din Taheri on June 4, 2013. He was a senior religious figure and a critical voice against regime hardliners. They chanted slogans in support of the two main opposition leaders under house arrest, Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hussein Mousavi. They also chanted “Down with the dictator!” and “Shame on the dictator!”

Ayatollah Taheri shocked many Iranians in 2002 when he resigned from his position as the Friday prayer speaker in the major city of Isfahan. In his resignation letter he wrote that he could not close his eyes to “tangible realities, and witness the stifling pain and unbearable suffering of people who were seeing the flowers of virtue being trampled, values collapsing, and spirituality being destroyed.”

Down with the Dictator

@Adagio tweeted that the presence of the huge crowd bearing radical slogans to mark his death is happening just in time before the election in mid-June.

Setad Salam tweeted that people were also calling for political prisoner to be released.