Who Is Kianoosh Sanjari? Iranian Activist Takes His Own Life In Protest Against Regime

Prominent human rights activist Kianoosh Sanjari, protesting the oppressive regime of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ends his life. On November 13, 2024, Kianoosh Sanjari posted a message on social media with a threat that he would kill himself if four political prisoners were not released by 7:00 PM local time or 15:30 GMT. These are Fateme Sepehari, Nasreen Shakrami, Tomaj Salehi, and Arsham Rezaei.

They were arrested for their alleged role in the wave of demonstrations which surged and swept the city following the death of a 22-year-old Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, who died after detention by Iran’s morality police in 2022.

Hours later the death of Sanjari was confirmed through fellow activists as the deadline in vain had passed for the release of the imprisoned. His final message is as if speaking to free Iran: “I wish one day Iranians would wake up and overcome slavery.” These last words prove that even on his deathbed, he still hoped in the strength of democracy and people’s right to speech and actions.

A Life of Activism And Struggle

Kianoosh Sanjari was an outspoken critic of Iran’s political system, said to have been shameful of a system that denied basic democratic freedoms. “No one should be imprisoned for expressing their opinions,” he had earlier said, echoing his long-held commitment to human rights. “Protest is the right of every Iranian citizen,” he averred, which had been his conduct for years.

Sanjari started his activism seriously in the late 1990s, and between 1999 and 2007, he was arrested numerous times for political reasons. This loudness against the regime described him as a man of repeated imprisonment; however, in 2007, Sanjari fled Iran to escape this oppressive environment and received asylum in Norway. He eventually moved to the Washington DC-based Voice of America Persian service and continued to speak out against oppression and injustice in Iran.

Sanjari returned to Iran in 2016 to care for his ailing parents. However, he was again arrested by the government. In 2019, he received an 11-year prison sentence and was held in the infamous Evin Prison, considered one of the prisons that house political prisoners. There, he experienced severe torture: electric shocks, chains to a bed, and injections of unknown substances.

The sad reality many activists in Iran face – risking everything to challenge a regime where freedom of expression has long been suppressed.

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