'Iran mourns 40,000 killed by Khamenei, not him': Exiled crown prince calls funeral 'propaganda'

Iran’s exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi has said the nation is “not mourning” the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, calling the week-long funeral ceremonies a “propaganda spectacle” funded by the Iranian people’s wealth.In a series of posts on X, Pahlavi addressed foreign representatives who have traveled to Tehran for the funeral, saying: “Iran is not mourning Khamenei. Iran is grieving for more than 40,000 women and men who, on the days of 18 and 19 Dey, were massacred at the hands of Khamenei, Qalibaf, and their apparatus of repression.”He said the regime had spent vast sums of the Iranian people’s wealth on staging the funeral, noting that “not a single leader from the democratic countries has deigned to attend.”In a follow-up post, Pahlavi added: “What you see today is not a nation in mourning for its ruler; rather, it is a nation brimming with righteous anger, and it is this very anger and heroic courage that will bring down what remains of this criminal regime.”

Pahlavi’s longstanding opposition to Islamic Republic

Pahlavi, the eldest son of the last Shah of Iran, has been a prominent dissident in exile since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. During the 2026 Iran war, he described the US-Israeli strikes as a “humanitarian intervention” targeting the Islamic Republic’s “apparatus of repression,” not the Iranian people.He has urged Trump to exercise caution to preserve civilian lives, stating that “the people of Iran are your natural allies.” Pahlavi has also called for large public gatherings in solidarity with protest movements and outlined a vision for a post-regime Iran at the 2026 CPAC conference.