In Iran, the suicide of opposition figure Kianoosh Sanjari sends shockwaves through social media – Technologist

Kianoosh Sanjari, to those who knew him, was a polite, gentle man who was deeply devoted to Iran. Tragically, on Wednesday, November 13, at the age of 42, this human rights activist, blogger and journalist committed suicide. In a post he had made on X that morning, he wrote, “If by 7 pm today, Wednesday, November 13, 2024, [political prisoners] Fatemeh Sepehri, Nasreen Shakrami, Toomaj Salehi, and Arsham Rezaei are not released from prison … , I will end my life in protest against the dictatorship of [Supreme Leader] Khamenei and his partners. Let this be a wake-up call! Long live Iran.”

Despite this declaration, the four prisoners were not released, and Sanjari’s desperate appeal received no official response from the Iranian government. At 7 pm, he posted a photo taken from the balcony of a shopping center near the Hafez Bridge in central Tehran, with these words: “My life will end after this tweet, but let us not forget that we give our lives out of love for life, not for death. May Iranians wake up and overcome slavery.”

The suicide of Sanjari, whose successive arrests had raised public awareness, sent shockwaves through Iranian social media, where many saw it as a symbol of the deadlock, despair and distress felt by Iranians opposed to the government.

Accused of ‘propaganda against the regime’

At age 16, Sanjari was arrested for the first time during the student protests of 1999. He then spent several months in solitary confinement before being released. In 2007, after another arrest, he secretly fled to Iraqi Kurdistan before obtaining political asylum in Norway and then in the United States, where he worked for the Persian service of Voice of America (VOA).

Then in October 2016, despite warnings from friends and several NGOs, he returned to Iran to care for his elderly, ailing mother. A few weeks later, he was arrested again and sentenced to five years in prison without parole, six years suspended and a two-year travel ban for “assembly and conspiracy, propaganda against the regime and membership in an illegal group.”

Released in March 2022 after three years, Sanjari left Iran again, this time for the United States, but difficulties forced him to return to his country, where he was briefly imprisoned in June 2022. In November 2022, during the wave of protests following the death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini, he was once again arrested for his posts criticizing the Islamic Republic.

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