Ahmad Baledi, a young Ahvazi Arab student, self-immolated after municipal agents violently demolished his family’s kiosk, igniting public outrage, repression, and renewed attention to systemic violence and discrimination against street vendors and marginalized communities.
The death of Ahmad Baledi, a 21-year-old student from Ahvaz who set himself on fire in protest at poverty and corruption, is the latest in a chain of self-immolations among Iran’s marginalized classes that has shocked and angered the public.
On the morning of 2 November 2025, in Zeytoon Park in Ahvaz, enforcement agents of District 3 Municipality raided the kiosk of Mojahid Baledi, Ahmad’s father—a kiosk that for 21 years had been the family’s only source of income. Despite having a two-year legal grace period to continue operating under a ruling by the prosecutor, and despite the father’s absence and lack of notice, the agents destroyed the kiosk.
Ahmad and his mother staged a sit-in inside the kiosk to stop the demolition. One of the agents violently threw Ahmad’s mother outside. As the agents ignored Ahmad’s pleas, he doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. According to his father, when Ahmad threatened to self-immolate, one of the agents taunted him: “Go ahead, burn yourself—let’s see how you burn.”
This young Ahvazi Arab set himself alight at a moment when Iranian society is struggling merely to stay alive under runaway inflation. Jobs requiring hard physical labor or operating under informal or semi-illegal conditions—selling goods in the metro or streets, running small stands in parks—are all under threat. Vendors confront both obstruction and violence from municipal agents and police, while state bodies often angle for greater “rent-seeking” shares of their already meager income.
Street vendors and kiosk owners face the daily terror of confiscation of their goods, along with frequent physical assaults—violence often triggered simply by their demand to survive, to secure housing, food, or education.
Ahmad Baledi was himself a student at Islamic Azad University—an institution that, contrary to its own regulations, has increased tuition fees in some programs by up to five times. His father told Khabar 24 that he and his son had repeatedly explained to municipal agents that this kiosk income was all they had to live on—and that they needed it to pay the university’s exorbitant fees. Yet the agents continued their destruction, mocked Ahmad, and goaded him toward self-immolation.
Who Will Be Held Accountable?
The Baledi family’s lawyer, Abdolnabi Abbasi, told Ham-Mihan newspaper after Ahmad’s death that the family is pursuing legal complaints against the responsible institutions. He warned that due to public anger, the case may face obstacles. Previously, executive and judicial authorities in Ahvaz had warned against “disturbing public opinion” regarding this killing, treating media coverage and public discussion as a threat that had to be policed.
As usual, the state’s primary response to public grief and outrage has been more repression. Several Khuzestani media activists were arrested for reporting on the self-immolation. But news of Ahmad’s death spread widely online, generating a wave of indignation in Ahvaz and beyond. Citizens, civil activists, and working-class families have demanded the removal of Ahvaz’s mayor.
Mojahed Baledi, Ahmad’s father, echoed these demands at his son’s mourning ceremony:
“I will not receive my son’s body until Reza Amini, the mayor of Ahvaz, and his manager Omid Shams leave this city.”
Thanking both Bakhtiari and Arab residents of Ahvaz, he asked:
“Why is no one accountable? My son burned defending his family’s bread, but the officials who ordered the destruction are still in their posts.”
Although a few low-level municipal officials—and even the mayor—were initially arrested, all were later released, and the mayor even denied that he had ever been detained. Under growing public pressure, however, Khuzestan’s governor announced on 12 November 2025 that Reza Amini had “resigned.” ISNA also reported the dismissal of the Deputy for Municipal Services, the District 3 Mayor, his deputy, and the District 3 Enforcement Chief.
A Chronicle of Street Vendors’ Self-Immolation
Ahmad Baledi is not the first. The best-known case is that of Younes Asakereh, who in March 2015 set himself on fire and died after municipal agents in Khorramshahr confiscated his fruit stand.
Another case is the unnamed street vendor at Golbarg metro station in Tehran, who in January 2014 threw himself under a train after agents confiscated his goods and ignored his pleas and threats.
In 2015, Amir Ahmadi, a street vendor from Kermanshah selling on Jomhouri–Champs-Élysées Street in Tehran, set himself on fire after provocation by municipal agents; he survived but paid all medical costs himself after emerging from a month-long coma.
Numerous violent confrontations reveal a pattern: municipal contractors hiring thugs to attack vendors and the urban poor. On 7 August 2014, Ali Cheraghi, a pickup-truck vendor, was beaten to death in front of his 13-year-old son by four District 4 Tehran-Pars enforcement agents after he refused to pay a bribe.
In Qazvin, during a “vendor clearing” operation on Norouzian Boulevard, a viral video showed six large municipal agents beating two vendors with rods, fists, and kicks—even brandishing a knife. One vendor, Alireza Heydari, was hospitalized.
Similar violent crackdowns have occurred in Gorgan, Tabriz, Rasht, and other cities—so frequently that even city council members have protested.
At times, the destruction of vendors’ belongings has been lethal. In May 2020, Asiyeh Panahi, a 61-year-old woman in Kermanshah, died on the spot during a municipal bulldozer demolition of her family’s shelter.
Other cases include the assault of carwash workers in Sa’adatabad (February 2016) and the demolition of homes in Zeytoon Township in eastern Tehran (November 2016).
The Tragedy of Women and Children’s Self-Immolation
Ahmad Baledi’s death belongs to a broader history of political and economic self-immolation in Iran—many victims of which are women and children.
Poverty-driven suicides are numerous. One example: Zeinab, an 11-year-old from Galdarreh village in Ilam Province, the daughter of a disabled father. On 5 April 2020, ashamed that she could not afford new clothes for Nowruz, she burned her old clothes and then hanged herself.
Another case: Sahar Khodayari, “the Blue Girl,” who died in 2019 after setting herself on fire in protest at a six-month prison sentence for trying to enter a stadium to watch her football team.
The most iconic self-immolation protest remains that of Dr. Homa Darabi, a pediatrician and psychiatrist who set herself on fire in Tajrish Square in 1994 to protest compulsory hijab.
What Comes Next?
Some users on social media have compared these self-immolations to that of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor whose death in December 2010 ignited the Tunisian revolution and the Arab Spring.
Bouazizi set himself ablaze after a municipal agent humiliated him and confiscated his handcart—just as Iranian vendors today face daily humiliation and the destruction of their livelihoods.
Whether Ahmad Baledi’s death becomes such a turning point is uncertain. But it is clear that his death poses a new challenge to the Islamic Republic—one that, like the killing of Jina (Mahsa) Amini, the state fears may transform into mass uprising.
