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Source: https://www.thefp.com/p/the-iran-the-funeral-cameras-dont?utm_campaign=realclearpolitics
The Iran the Funeral Cameras Don't Show
(Free Press) Masih Alinejad - In the months since supreme leader Ali Khamenei's death, I have received hundreds of messages from friends and contacts inside Iran. They are messages of disbelief, relief and, when people feel safe enough, joy. But they are still afraid. They are always afraid. The carefully choreographed seas of mourners at the funeral are an illusion. I know from experience how they are assembled through force. The total expense of the week-long funeral - including security deployments of roughly 150,000 police, temporary infrastructure, transportation, accommodation for thousands of out-of-town participants, free 24-hour metro and bus services, catering, and a week of public holidays - could approach $800 million. Why does the system that denounced extravagance pour hundreds of millions into a funeral? For a supreme leader who was considered a titan of a global movement, the absence of every major world leader is an embarrassment. This was not mourning. This was a regime staging a display of strength for an audience that is no longer watching. Many of those attending the funeral genuinely want revenge. During the funeral, crowds of mourners hung an effigy of President Donald Trump. From the funeral stage, regime loyalists repeatedly vowed revenge. Placards carried by mourners displayed prominent Americans, with red crosshairs or target marks over their foreheads. The captions read, "Sooner or later, your heads will roll." When the Islamic Republic threatens to kill you, believe them. As a former journalist in Iran, I was forced into exile for criticizing the regime, only for Iranian intelligence operatives to plot my assassination in New York - a plan foiled by the FBI at the last minute. But before that, the regime threatened me publicly with posters, cartoons, and effigies. For the Islamic Republic, propaganda is the prelude to action. This is Iran's reality: a population who have learned to perform grief when required, and who express their true feelings only in whispers, anonymously, or not at all. I have been the keeper of those messages for years. They fill my phone. They fill my social media. They are the Iran the funeral cameras do not show.