Iran news: (L) Ahmad Jannati (R) thousands of people gathered to pay homage to Khomeini on Friday (Image: GETTY)
The assembled crowds were celebrating the 40th anniversary of the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, which saw Ayatollah Khomeini rise to power in the beleaguered Middle Eastern nation. The Khomeini-led revolution was instrumental in toppling the US-backed shah. It also overturned 2,500 years of monarchical rule and brought hard-line Shiite clerics to power.
The clerics, known to the Iranian people as “Mullahs”, now rule the nation with impunity, with grave consequences for women’s rights and fundamental human freedoms.
Across Iran on Friday, sirens rang out from trains and boats and church bells chimed at 9.33am — the exact time Khomeini’s chartered Air France Boeing 747 touched down 40 years ago at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport.
Ten days of festivities - known as the “Ten Days of Dawn” are set to ensue in Iran ending on February 11.
As part of the commemorations, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the influential expert's assembly, which appoints the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, delivered a keynote speech rebuking factions seeking better
