Iranian journalist and activist Kianoosh Sanjari took his own life in Tehran on Wednesday after pledging the previous day that he would kill himself if four political prisoners he named were not released.
The charges against them remain contested, however, due to a lack of clear evidence linking them to the crime.
Babak Paknia, a lawyer, confirmed via social media on Wednesday that the 13th branch of Tehran’s Criminal Court had sentenced Milad Armoon, Alireza Kafa’i, Amir Mohammad Khosh Eqbal, Navid Najaran, Hossein Nemati, and Alireza Barmarzpournak to death under "qisas al-nafs"—the Islamic retributive death penalty. Paknia, who represents several of the accused, noted that the verdict is subject to appeal.
The case, tied to the broader unrest that followed the death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody, involves accusations that the defendants participated in the killing of Basij member Arman Aliverdi in the Shahrak-e Ekbatan neighborhood in western Tehran.
Security forces arrested 50 young residents of the neighborhood. The judiciary of the Islamic Republic then issued indictments for 14 individuals in connection with the case, among whom four defendants were charged with "moharebeh" (waging war against God).
Other charges in the case include "participation in premeditated murder" and "disruption of public order and peace."
A video circulating on social media showed Aliverdi, bleeding from the face and head as a protester kicked him. Authorities claim protesters also stabbed him, but the defendants have denied the allegations, and residents of Ekbatan say that Aliverdi had been trying to infiltrate the protests.
The controversy surrounding the case is compounded by reports of torture and mistreatment of the accused, with human rights organizations expressing concern over the fairness of the trial.
The incidents in Ekbatan unfolded amid the protests, during which, the Basij, along with plainclothes security officers, targeted demonstrators. In Ekbatan, Basij forces frequently shot at windows, raided apartment lobbies, and destroyed property to intimidate residents.
The Basij, ever-present in the area, maintain four bases within the five-square-kilometer complex which houses 15,500 apartments and a population of approximately 45,000.
Government forces frequently deployed tear gas and fired pellets at protesters chanting "Death to Khamenei" and "Down with the Dictator" each night and carried out arrests both inside and outside the buildings.
Prominent political activist Hossein Ronaghi, in reaction to the sentences, wrote on X: "The issuance of death sentences for the Ekbatan children signifies the transformation of the judiciary into a weapon for silencing opponents and protesters."
The case also highlights the wider pattern of measures by Iranian authorities to suppress dissent. Human rights groups have pointed out that the trials of protest-related defendants often suffer from a lack of transparency and fail to adhere to international legal standards.
So far, nine individuals have been executed in connection with the protests, with several others facing similar charges. These include Mohammad Mehdi Karami, Mohammad Ghobado, Mohsen Shekari, and Majidreza Rahnavard, among others.
As Iran’s judiciary continues to crack down on protesters, concerns over human rights violations and the fairness of trials have escalated.
Pundits say besides a mutual wish to help bring the war in Gaza and Lebanon to an end, intertwined security interests play a decisive role in the significant but cautious recent improvement of relations between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.
They say Tehran may be wary of the fact that Donald Trump’s presidency and an end to the war in Gaza and Lebanon may push Saudi Arabia forward in the path of joining the Abraham Pact and normalizing its relations with Israel.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, which broke its diplomatic relations with Tehran in 2016, have already established normal diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv.
This, they believe, can completely isolate Tehran in the region at a time when sanctions have drastically damaged its economy and the threat of an all-out war with Israel hangs over its head.
“Trump’s foreign policy regarding the Persian Gulf region [during his first term] was generally giving carte blanche to Saudi Arabia and Israel while conducting a ‘maximum pressure’ campaign against Iran,” Javad Heiran-Nia, director of Persian Gulf Studies at the Center for Scientific Research and Middle East Strategic Studies, wrote Tuesday in an article published by the Iranian think-tank.
This situation, he said, could entail a US-led military coalition with Israel and Persian Gulf Arab countries to be formed. “In response, Iran has been trying to improve its relations with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates and prevent a unified US-Israeli-Arab air defense system from forming,” Heiran-Nia wrote, adding that that further convergence of Persian Gulf Arab states with Israel could tip the balance of power against the Islamic Republic and its allies in the region.
Heiran-Nia also argued that realizing that the United States was not going to give it military support against the Islamic Republic, Saudi Arabia wanted to be “a supporter of order in the region rather than a leader” after Iran-backed Houthis’ attack launched rockets and drones on Saudi Aramco’s oil facilities in Jeddah and Riadh, has pushed Saudi Arabia to adjust its policies regarding Iran with less reliance on the United States.
Besides hoping that the Saudis could help to end the war in Gaza and Lebanon to an end, some pundits have also suggested that Iran may be counting on Riadh to play a mediatory role between Tehran and Washington when Trump takes office given the Saudi's traditional good relations with US Republicans and Trump.
“Let’s keep in mind that after the Zionist regime, it is Saudi Arabia that has the most and the strongest lobbies in the power centers of the United States, whether in the Republican Party or among Democrats, and its power of playing a role in improvement or sabotaging relations between Tehran and Washington should not be underestimated,” Persian Gulf region analyst Vahid Pour-Tajrishi wrote in Tahlil-e Bazar Tuesday.
Iran's backing of Shia Houthis has been a thorny issue in Tehran-Riadh relations. Some analysts have pointed out that Riadh, in turn, may be hoping Iran would help end years of conflict with Yemen.
The normalization of Tehran-Riadh relations on political and military levels will have a positive impact on the situation in Yemen alongside the mediatory role that Oman is currently playing between Riadh and Sanaa, journalist and political analyst Salah Al-Saqladi wrote in an article Monday entitled “Saudi-Iranian Military Coordination: What Does This Mean for Yemen” in Rai al-Youm, an Arab world digital news and opinion website.
Political analyst Ruhollah Rahimpour in a tweet Wednesday has also argued that while Iran's state media present Mohammed Bin Salman’s support for Iran as an achievement for the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy, the move helps define a “leading role in the Islamic world” for the de facto Saudi ruler and leaves Iran in his debt to prevent future challenges from Tehran to this role.
Riadh broke its diplomatic relations with Tehran in 2016 when an ultra-hardliner mob attacked and vandalized the Saudi embassy in Tehran and its consulate in Mashhad with Iranian security forces allegedly giving them free reign to burn diplomatic property and documents.
The attack came after Saudi Arabia’s execution of a prominent Shia cleric, Nimr al-Nimr, and the Revolutionary Guards’ promise of “harsh revenge” against the Saudis.
The two countries came nearly to the brink of a war in 2019 following the Houthis attack on Saudi oil facilities.
In 2021, Iraq initiated a mediatory effort to reconcile Tehran and Riadh which led to an agreement in March 2023 to resume their diplomatic relations. The agreement was surprisingly signed not in Baghdad but in Beijing which has deepened its relations, not only with the Islamic Republic, but also with Saudi Arabia in the past few years.
Kristi Noem is taking the helm of homeland security, John Ratcliffe as the CIA director and Pete Hegseth will be defense secretary.
Noem has been vocally supportive of Israel and branded Iran an “enemy of America”, slamming the first ever direct attack on Israel from Iran in April which saw Tehran send 350 drones and missiles to the Jewish state.
Following the attack, she posted on Instagram: “We stand with the people of Israel against this unprecedented attack. Iran is also an enemy to America. And I expect decisive action from our country on behalf of Israel.”
She was vehemently against President Barak Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, the JCPOA, and called it “poorly negotiated”.
"The Obama-era Iran deal was poorly negotiated, failed to permanently stop Iran from acquiring nuclear capabilities, and undermined American security and that of our ally Israel," she said in a statement in May 2018 after Trump canned the deal.
"We should have walked away from this agreement at the very beginning, and I'm proud that President Trump has been bold enough to do so."
She had joined others in the House in voting down Obama's nuclear deal in September 2015, but the legislation was never signed into law.
With alleged attacks being plotted by Iran on US soil, Noem will be a fierce opponent as she will be closely tied to border protection, immigration and working alongside the US Secret Service.
As head of the Central Intelligence Agency, Trump loyalist John Ratcliffe will be another fierce opponent for Tehran.
As Director of National Intelligence, just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, he was among multiple officials accusing Iran of meddling in the elections. He said the Islamic Republic was responsible for a barrage of emails sent to intimidate voters.
He has accused the Biden administration of being too soft on Iran, and in the midst of Iran’s proxy war against Israel, slammed the administration for threatening to withhold weapons to the Jewish state as endangering a key regional ally.
He has been a vocal opponent of suggestions to remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) from the terror list in the US and has been supportive of Israel’s recent operations in Iran.
He told Fox News that "what Israel has done is essentially employ 'the Trump doctrine': a maximum-pressure campaign, understanding the only way to deter terrorists like Iran and their proxies is to put your foot on their throat. Israel has done that, we should be assisting Israel in doing so.”
Trump’s pick for defense secretary will be no less challenging for Tehran. Military veteran Pete Hegseth will no doubt reverse many of the “woke” policies he criticized the Biden administration for.
The Fox News host called for military action against Iran as early as 2020. Speaking on Fox News, he said: "They are not as capable as they want the world to believe they are. They want something to sell for internal propaganda. I totally get that. None of this though changes the calculation of this regime, which is an evil regime.”
Warning about Iran's nuclear threat, he said, "I happen to believe that we can't kick the can down the road any longer in trying to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb,” calling for targeted strikes.
“What better time than now to say, we're starting the clock, you've got a week, you've got X amount of time before we start taking out your energy production facilities. We take out key infrastructure. We take out your missile sites. We take out nuclear developments," he said at the time.
Making it clear he did not want a repeat of Iraq or Afghanistan, he said he is not calling for boots on the ground or endless war, but said “Iran has been in endless war with us for 40 years. Either we put up and shut up now and stop it”.
The new appointments come on the back of other pro-Israel, anti-Iran aides.
Trump has also announced Representative Elise Stefanik of New York is to become United Nations ambassador, Representative Mike Waltz of Florida will take over as national security advisor, and it is expected that Senator Marco Rubio of Florida will become secretary of State.
All have been supportive of a "maximum pressure" approach to Iran while backing Israel in its fight against the two allies' mutual enemy.
Sanjari’s death has drawn attention to the plight of detainees and the worsening human rights situation in the country.
In the early hours of November 13, Sanjari posted an ultimatum on X, demanding the release of four political prisoners: Fatemeh Sepehri, Nasrin Shakarami, Toomaj Salehi, and Arsham Rezaei.
“If by 7 PM today... their release is not announced on the Judiciary’s news website, I will end my life in protest against Khamenei's dictatorship and his accomplices,” he wrote.
After that deadline passed, Sanjari shared an image of himself atop a bridge in Tehran, captioning: “It is 7 PM Hafez Bridge.”
Hours later, his death was confirmed by sources in Iran, including activist Hossein Ronaghi, who wrote on X: “We did everything we could, since last night, and today, but Kianoosh passed.”
A legacy of resistance
Sanjari was a vocal critic of Iran's clerical rulers and an advocate for democracy and human rights. He had been repeatedly arrested and imprisoned by Iranian authorities between 1999 and 2007 for his activism.
During his time behind bars, Sanjari endured solitary confinement and what he described as white torture, or psychological abuse through sensory deprivation that left deep emotional scars.
Sanjari fled Iran in 2007, receiving asylum in Norway with the assistance of Amnesty International. While abroad, he worked with rights group the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation and the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center and later was a journalist for Voice of America in Washington DC.
However, his commitment to family brought him back to Iran in 2016, where he was swiftly arrested and sentenced to 11 years in prison on politically motivated charges.
During his time in custody, Sanjari was subjected to repeated abuse, including forced hospitalization in psychiatric facilities and electric shock treatments. He once recounted: "At night the nurse injected me with something that locked my jaw... When I woke up, my hands and feet were chained to the bed."
Sanjari’s death comes amid ongoing campaigns by Iranian authorities to smother dissent. Since the Women, Life, Freedom protests ignited by the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022, Iran executed at least nine protesters involved in the unrest and sentenced dozens more to death.
A call to action
The individuals Sanjari championed in his final message are key dissidents in Iran.
Fatemeh Sepehri, a political prisoner and vocal critic of the Islamic Republic, was imprisoned despite her heart condition. Nasrin Shakarami, mother of slain protester Nika Shakarami, was recently detained without clear charges. Toomaj Salehi, a rapper known for his protest songs, received the death penalty before the sentence was commuted to imprisonment. Arsham Rezaei, another political activist remains detained in Evin Prison..
Sanjari’s death echoes the suicide of 38-year-old Mohammad Moradi in Lyon, France, who drowned himself in December 2022 to draw international attention to Iran’s crackdown on human rights.
Before his death, Moradi recorded a video pleading for global support: “We want to change our country to a democratic country with equal rights for women and men.”
Human rights organizations have long criticized Iran’s judiciary for its lack of transparency and reliance on coerced confessions.
Domestically, the Islamic Republic's strategy of silencing dissent through intimidation and harsh penalties has fueled anger and resistance.
Sanjari's final words posed a rebuke to Iranians and the international community alike: “Perhaps it will be a wake-up call! Long live Iran.”
