Ahmad Baledi, a 20-year-old Arab student, self-immolated after a violent municipal raid on his family’s kiosk, sparking protests, officials’ denials, activist arrests, and renewed scrutiny of anti-Arab discrimination.
On the morning of Sunday, 2 November 2025, in Ahvaz’s Zeytoon Park, a confrontation over a small food kiosk ended with a young man setting himself on fire.
That young man was Ahmad Baledi, a 20-year-old Arab law student from Ahvaz. For nearly 21 years, his father, Mojahed Baledi, had run a licensed snack kiosk in the park, supporting six children from its income. According to the family, the kiosk was operating under a judicial ruling granting them a two-year grace period to continue working.
The Raid on the Kiosk
That morning, enforcement agents from District 3 Municipality, accompanied by police, arrived at the kiosk without notifying the owner and began demolishing it. Mojahed was not present; inside the kiosk were Ahmad and his mother.
Family members say the agents smashed glass and equipment and insulted Ahmad’s mother. According to multiple accounts, the deputy for municipal services grabbed her arm and threw her violently out of the kiosk. Ahmad begged them to stop and warned he would set himself on fire if they continued.
What happened next has become the core of public outrage. Mojahed says that in response to Ahmad’s threat, one of the agents sneered:
“Go ahead, burn yourself—let’s see how you burn.”
Witnesses and rights groups report that some of the agents stood by in ridicule as Ahmad, in full view of the officers, doused himself in gasoline and lit the match.
Ahmad suffered burns over roughly 70 percent of his body and was taken to Taleghani Burn Hospital in Ahvaz, where his condition was described as critical.
“Legal Demolition” vs. Family’s Testimony
In an official statement, Ahvaz Municipality claimed the operation was lawful, carried out under a court order as part of a green-space development plan. The municipality denied any physical altercation and said its agents had merely been negotiating with the family when they “suddenly noticed a fire” and tried to extinguish it.
The Baledi family’s account sharply contradicts this: they describe a violent raid, the breaking of property, physical assault on Ahmad’s mother, and a deliberate refusal to heed Ahmad’s pleas. For them, the self-immolation was not an isolated act of despair, but a direct response to humiliation as Arabs and ethnic minorities in Iran, the destruction of their only livelihood, and years of mounting pressure.
From Hospital Bed to Funeral
Ahmad clung to life for nine days. On Tuesday, 11 November 2025, Jondi Shapur University of Medical Sciences in Ahvaz confirmed his death from the severity of his injuries.
By then, his case had already set off a wave of anger across Iran’s political landscape. Crowds gathered in the courtyard of Taleghani Hospital, chanting against municipal officials and confronting Khuzestan governor Seyyed Mohammadreza Movalezadeh, demanding justice and the immediate removal of Reza Amini, Ahvaz’s non-local mayor, and his aides.
At Ahmad’s mourning ceremony, his father addressed the authorities directly: “Until Reza Amini, the mayor of Ahvaz, and the enforcement chief leave this city, I will not receive my son’s body.”
State Response: Arrests, Threats, and Denials
Following Ahmad’s self-immolation and the protests outside the hospital, officials moved on several tracks at once: limited concessions, public threats, and repression.
• On 6 November 2025, the Ahvaz Prosecutor’s Office warned that anyone using Ahmad’s case to “create ethnic division and disturb public order” would face prosecution, accusing unnamed “enemies” of exploiting emotions to inflame tensions among Khuzestan’s ethnic communities.
• On 7 November 2025, the Karun Human Rights Organization reported the arrest of several Arab activists—including Hassan Salamat, Javad Sa’edi, and Seyyed Sadegh Albu Shoukeh—for covering or protesting the case.
• On 9 November 2025, authorities announced that the mayor and the head of municipal enforcement had been arrested. Shortly afterward, the prosecutor clarified that they had been released on bail and “temporarily suspended” pending investigation.
Meanwhile, Ahvaz’s mayor, Reza Amini, posted a video denying that he had ever been arrested and claiming he was attending an official meeting in Qom on the day his arrest had been reported. He made no mention of Ahmad’s death or the Baledi family’s suffering.
The municipality’s communications office backed him, calling reports of his arrest “baseless” and insisting he was fully engaged in his duties on 9 November 2025. For many Ahvaz residents, this denial and silence reinforced the sense of a city administration detached from the realities of those it governs.
Yet public pressure continued. On 11 November 2025, one day after Ahmad’s death was confirmed, the Khuzestan Governorate announced that:
• Reza Amini had resigned as mayor of Ahvaz;
• The Deputy for Municipal Services, the District 3 Mayor, his deputy, and the District 3 Enforcement Chief had all been removed from their posts.
That same day, President Masoud Pezeshkian ordered the Interior Minister to establish a special committee to investigate the incident and “deal with the culprits.”
Rights Groups: Structural Violence and Arab Marginalization
Karun Human Rights Organization squarely blamed the Islamic Republic and its repressive laws for Ahmad’s death, calling international silence a form of complicity in ongoing human rights violations.
The group demanded an independent, transparent investigation into the conduct of municipal agents, police, and state structures; prosecution of all officials responsible for abuses; the immediate release of those detained solely for reporting or protesting; guarantees of safety, dignity, and the right to peaceful protest for Ahvaz residents; and structural reforms to end systematic rights violations.
The organization also situated the Baledi family’s kiosk within a broader pattern of state discrimination against Arab citizens:
• Mojahed Baledi’s kiosk—licensed roughly 25 years ago—was one of very few Arab-owned kiosks among more than 400 in the city.
• In recent years he had faced repeated, discriminatory efforts by certain officials to demolish the kiosk, part of a pattern of economic and social exclusion targeting Arab communities in Khuzestan.
A Kiosk, a Death, and a Question
At its narrowest, the story is about one kiosk in Zeytoon Park, one family’s livelihood, and a young law student who burned in protest. But the events surrounding Ahmad Baledi’s self-immolation—the humiliating raid, the televised denials, the arrests of activists, the delayed resignations—raise a deeper question:
Who, beyond a handful of municipal officials, will be held accountable for a system in which defending your family’s bread can end in flames?
