Kianoosh Sanjari

کیانوش سنجری

Kianoush Sanjari (born Mehdi Sanjari Baf) was an Iranian political activist, blogger, and independent journalist from Tehran, who had a history of being arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and held in solitary confinement several times. Sanjari committed suicide on November 13, 2024 in Tehran's Charsoi mall in protest against the criminal regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Sanjari immigrated to the United States many years ago, where he worked for Voice of America Persian News Network for a while. He was arrested again after returning to Iran in 2016.

On November 12, 2024, one day before his suicide, Kianoush sent the following tweet:

"If Fatemeh Sepehri, Nasrin Shakerami, Toumaj Salehi, and Arsham Rezaei are not released from prison by 7 p.m., Wednesday, November 13, 2024, and the news of their release is not published on the judiciary's news website, I will end my life in protest against the dictatorship of Khamenei and his associates.

Maybe it will be a wake-up call!

Long Live Iran"

White torture

Kianoush Sanjari was arrested at least nine times throughout his life for using his human right of freedom of speech. He spent a total of two years as a political prisoner, and spent nine months of that time in solitary confinement in security detention centers 209, 59 of the IRGC, Ward 2A known as 325 of the IRGC, 240, and the Tehran Security Police Intelligence Department detention center. He was subjected to white torture in solitary confinement.

Sanjari told Amnesty International Norway: “This state is like a battle between the mind and the body. Being held in absolute solitude in solitary confinement is the most disturbing and inhuman form of white torture for people like me, who are arrested solely for [defending] their citizens' rights. This method does not affect the body but completely confuses the person's mind. Prisoners lose their identity and are willing to confess to anything. This method is used against dissidents and critical journalists in prisons that are not monitored like regular prisons, such as Ward 209 of Evin Prison in Tehran. I only hope the day comes when no one is put in solitary confinement [to punish them] for the peaceful expression of his ideas”