Fereydoun Rostami, an employee of the Marivan municipality, set himself on fire in front of his workplace in protest against pressure, threats, and humiliating treatment by the municipality’s security office. This is the third reported self-immolation in the past two weeks and the seventh media-reported suicide since October 23.
According to the Hengaw human rights organization, Rostami’s coworkers saved him using a fire extinguisher, but “security forces stationed at the Kanidinar municipality” in the Marivan region surrounded him and prevented witnesses from learning about his condition after the fire was put out.
The report states that Rostami, who had six years of experience in the administrative department of the Kanidinar municipality, was fired six months ago under pressure exerted by a security office employee identified as “Shima Mohammadi, daughter of Karim Mohammadi, a member of Marivan’s Intelligence Department.”
After being rehired, he was transferred to another division. In recent days, he was reassigned to municipal sanitation work and, according to Hengaw, forced to sweep streets and collect garbage.
Three protest self-immolations from November 5 to 17
Rostami’s self-immolation is the third since November 5. On November 5, Ahmad Baledi set himself on fire in protest after Ahvaz municipality agents destroyed his family’s food stand; he died in hospital on November 11.
Baledi, who worked at the family’s food stand while attending university, set himself on fire after municipality workers destroyed their stand.
On November 12, the head of Sanandaj Fire Department announced that a firefighter named Shaho Saffari set himself on fire inside the department’s headquarters in protest over unpaid and overdue wages; his condition was reported as critical.
The suicides that reached the media
According to media reports, since late October at least two young female medical workers, a journalist and political analyst, and one political prisoner have died by suicide.
In late October, news emerged that a gynecology resident at Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Yasaman Shirani, had died by suicide.
On November 2, similar news surfaced about a 36-year-old general practitioner named Nadia Motaghi in Shiraz. In the following days, the suicides of political analyst and journalist Fouad Shams, a young man in Aligudarz, and a political prisoner named Mehrdad Ahmadi-Nejad were also reported.
In response to these reports, Mohammad-Reza Aref, the first vice president under Iran’s regime president Massoud Pezeshkian, described the events as a “signal” to the authorities that points to a “social crisis.”
