Iranian Man Found Dead Hours After Posting Video Burning Khamenei's Portrait

Last Updated:November 04, 2025, 20:00 IST

Omid Sarlak, in his twenties, shared the video on Instagram story on Friday, showing him setting fire to a portrait of Khamenei in a forested area

News18

An Iranian man has been found dead from a gunshot wound in his car shortly after posting a video of himself burning a picture of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Omid Sarlak, in his twenties and from Lorestan province in western Iran, shared the video on Instagram story on Friday, showing him setting fire to a portrait of Khamenei in a forested area. He was discovered dead in his car over the weekend.

Opposition media based outside Iran reported that mourners blamed the authorities for his death. However, Iran’s official IRNA news agency cited Ali Asadollahi, the police chief of Aligudarz, saying that Sarlak had killed himself with a pistol found beside him. Authorities have described the death as a suicide.

Footage from Sarlak’s funeral on Monday showed dozens of mourners shouting slogans such as “They killed him!" and “Death to Khamenei."

Videos posted on social media by opposition outlets, including Iran and Radio Farda, captured the anger of attendees, many of whom questioned the circumstances surrounding his death.

In his Instagram post, Sarlak also included a recording of the voice of the deposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, signalling his support for the Iranian monarchy removed in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Reza Pahlavi, the Shah’s son, wrote on X that Sarlak had “stood against the oppression of the Islamic republic and sacrificed his life for Iran’s freedom."

Iran’s Tasnim news agency dismissed claims circulating in “anti-revolution media" that Sarlak had been persecuted for speaking out, reiterating that he had taken his own life and that there was no case against him.

Meanwhile, Sarlak’s father was shown weeping in a video shared online, saying, “They killed my boy," though he later told state-run television that people should not trust social media reports.

Activists say the Iranian authorities are intensifying crackdowns on dissent, three years after nationwide protests and shortly after the 12-day conflict with Israel in June. UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Mai Sato, warned that “external aggression has fuelled deeper internal repression."

(With inputs from AFP)

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