An Iranian man was found dead hours after he posted a picture of himself burning an effigy of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, according to opposition media outlets based outside the country.
Omid Sarlak, the deceased individual, posted a story on Instagram of how he burned an effigy of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a wooded area and was found dead hours later.
The IRNA news agency, which is Iran’s state media, carried a report that quoted police chief Aligudarz as saying that a man was found dead in a car after taking his own life with a gun.
However, Reuters, citing opposition media such as Iran International and Radio Farda, revealed that a number of mourners shouted “kill Kim!” and “death to Khamenei” during Sarlak’s funeral.
The US State Department also condemned the death.
Iran’s history of alleged dissident killings
This is not the first time accusations have been made against the Iranian government of killing dissidents.
From 1988 to 1999, a number of murders and disappearances of intellectuals opposed to the Islamic Republic’s system of governance were reported from Iran.
Khamenei then rejected the accusations, calling them the work of “enemies of Iran”. Later, due to international pressure, Iran found one Saeed Emami, the head of “rogue elements” in the country’s intelligence ministry, guilty of these crimes. Three agents working for the Ministry of Intelligence were sentenced to death for the murders in 2001 and 12 were sent to prison.
The United Nations Independent International Investigation Mission in Iran also reported a domestic crackdown on the public following Israeli strikes in the country.
Investigators appointed United Nations Human Rights Council reported that thousands of people, including human rights defenders, lawyers and journalists, had been arrested following the attacks.
2025 also saw an increase in the number of executions by the Iranian government, which was the highest since 2015.
“If executions are part of a large-scale and systematic attack against the civilian population, as part of a policy, then those responsible – including judges who impose the death penalty – can be held accountable for crimes against humanity,” said UN Fact-Finding Mission rights expert Max du Plessis.
One of the chilling cases of an Iranian agent killing a dissident happened in Istanbul in November 2019, when former secret service agent Masoud Molavi Vardanjani was shot dead.
Vardanjani reportedly accused Iran’s law enforcement and judiciary of corruption and killing opposition figures.
In 1992, four dissidents who were Kurdish-Iranian were shot dead in the Mykonos restaurant in the German capital of Berlin. A German court then ruled that the assassinations had been ordered by the “highest levels” of Iran’s leadership. NYT report.
