Thousands of Iranians attended a funeral procession in Tehran for prominent poet Houshang Ebtehaj, whose life and work spans many of Iran's political, cultural, and literary upheavals.
Born in 1928, Ebtehaj, considered by many as the last living old-school Iranian poet, died on August 10 in Germany. According to his daughter Yalda Ebtahaj, the cause of death was kidney failure.
Local media reported that after the funeral ceremony in front of Vahdat Hall in Tehran, Ebtahaj's body will be transferred to his hometown, Rasht, to be buried.
In addition to romantic themes in Ebtehaj's poems, socialist politics was considered the center of his identity.
Ebtehaj sympathized with the Tudeh Communist Party of Iran and spent some time in prison after the overthrow of the monarchy in Iran in 1979.
Ebtehaj was finally released in 1984 after the famous Iranian poet Mohammad Hossein Shahryar requested Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the president of Iran at the time, release him.
Ebtehaj had lived in Germany since the late 1980s.