Demonstrators attend a protest against the assassination of the Iranian Major-General Qasem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force, and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis who were killed in an air strike in Baghdad airport, in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 3, 2020.
Iranian authories were caught off-guard on Sunday by huge gatherings in cities across Iran, the largest since the country’s disputed presidential election in 2009.
Luckily for them, the crowds were there to pay respects to a beloved pop singer.
Morteza Pashaei, who was only 30, died on Friday from pancreatic cancer. His music touched many Iranians, especially members of younger generations.
“In the last few years, his songs kind of sat well with the population,” Poriya Moazzami, co-founder of the US-based online Iranian music station Radio Javan, said to the the BBC.
Moazzami said Pashaei’s raw and emotional music, with lyrics about love and loneliness, struck a chord with young people. “He talks on behalf of the young generation. They fall in love, and they fall out of love, and they get defeated in love — and he talks so eloquently on behalf of the young population,” he said.
The news of Pashaei’s cancer came only last year, shocking his fans. He spoke about the disease during an interview on TV last year, looking thin and somewhat frail. “The news of my cancer came out of nowhere,” he said, “but it hasn’t changed my life.”
By that time, he had begun wearing a fedora to hide his hair loss from chemotherapy. His fans began closely following news about his health.
“We took him as a friend, as a brother that we never had, that is dealing with this — and is dealing with it in such a brave manner,” Moazzami recalled. “So [he] definitely sat very close to all Iranians’ hearts.”
On Friday, those hearts were broken by the news of Pashaei’s death. Thousands came out to say farewell, holding candles as they chanted his songs. The crowds became so big that he could only be buried later in the day, after darkness fell.
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