A 20-year-old student from Ahvaz, Ahmad Baladi, has died after setting himself on fire in protest against the destruction of his family’s small food kiosk by municipal agents and security forces. His death has become a searing indictment of the clerical dictatorship’s corruption, repression, and indifference to the misery it inflicts on the poor.
According to state media, Baladi died on November 11, 2025, at Taleghani Hospital, days after suffering burns to more than 70 percent of his body. The incident occurred on 12 Aban (2 November), when enforcement officers from District 3 Municipality of Ahvaz, accompanied by police, arrived without notice and demolished the family’s small restaurant in Park Zeytoun — a business they had operated for 20 years and their only source of income.
Ahmad’s father, Mojahed Baladi, said he had been detained by municipal agents that morning to prevent him from resisting the demolition. When Ahmad unexpectedly passed by the restaurant after university classes were canceled due to air pollution, he saw officials tearing down the building. They cut the electricity, trapping him inside, and ignored his pleas to stop.
As Ahmad shouted that he would burn himself if they continued, officers mocked him — reportedly asking whether he wanted “matches or a lighter.” His mother, who rushed to the scene, begged the officials to open the door and even tried to kiss one officer’s hand; instead, she was shoved aside. Moments later, Ahmad poured gasoline over his body and set himself alight. Only then did the agents open the door and douse him with water.
Ahvaz Self-Immolation and the Fear Driving the Crackdown in #Iranhttps://t.co/4aZC6Cd0zu
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) November 9, 2025
Eyewitnesses told Shargh Daily that Ahmad was taken to the intensive care unit of Ahvaz’s Taleghani Burn Hospital, where doctors described his condition as “very critical.” Hospital staff and administrators refused to release details of his treatment or condition, even to the family, fueling public anger and speculation over attempts to suppress information.
The Ahvaz prosecutor later announced the temporary arrest of the city’s mayor and the head of the enforcement unit, issuing warrants for three others. Security forces also arrested at least three Arab journalists and activists — Hassan Salamat, Javad Saeedi, and Sadeq Albooshoka — who had reported on the case and on the protests outside the hospital.
While regime officials have tried to deflect blame, multiple witness testimonies point to deliberate humiliation and provocation by municipal agents, and to a broader pattern of brutality against impoverished citizens.
Rights organizations and local residents condemned the inhuman conduct of the agents, calling Baladi’s death a result of engineered poverty and systemic neglect that have left millions of Iranians struggling to survive. Analysts and local sources suggest that long-standing economic hardship and aggressive new policies by a non-local mayor have deepened tensions between impoverished street vendors and city authorities.
Ahmad Baladi’s death has become more than a personal tragedy — it is a warning. His self-immolation, like that of Kourosh Kheiri before him, exposes a nation crushed by corruption, poverty, and humiliation, where each act of despair risks igniting a society already combustible from years of injustice and repression.