Iran’s exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi has said the country 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 money.In a series of posts on Twitter, Pahlavi addressed foreign delegates traveling to Tehran for the funeral, saying: “Iran is not mourning Khamenei. Iran is mourning for the more than 40,000 women and men who died on May 18 and 19 at the hands of Khamenei, Qalibaf and their repression apparatus.”He said that the regime had spent huge sums of money from the Iranian people on organizing the funeral, noting that “not a single leader from democratic countries has agreed to attend.”In a follow-up post, Pahlavi said: “What you see today is not a nation mourning its ruler; rather, it is a nation filled with righteous anger, and it is this anger and heroic courage that will eliminate the remnants of this criminal regime.”
Pahlavi’s long-standing opposition islamic republic
Pahlavi, the eldest son of Iran’s last shah, has been a prominent dissident in exile since the 1979 Islamic revolution. During the 2026 Iran War, he described the US-Israeli attacks as “humanitarian intervention” targeting not the Iranian people but the Islamic Republic’s “mechanisms of oppression”.He urged Trump to take precautions to protect civilian lives, saying that “the people of Iran are your natural allies.” Pahlavi has also called for large public gatherings to show solidarity with protest movements and outlined a vision for a post-regime Iran at the 2026 CPAC conference.