An Iranian man has been found dead with a gunshot wound after posting an image of himself burning a picture of the supreme leader, with mourners blaming the authorities, according to opposition media based outside of Iran.
Omid Sarlak, from Lorestan province in western Iran, had published on Instagram an image of himself setting alight the image of Ali Khamenei in a forested area on Friday, hours before being found dead at the weekend.
Iran's official IRNA news agency carried a report citing Ali Asadollahi, the police chief in his town of Aligudarz, saying a man had been found dead in his car after taking his life with a pistol that was found by his side.
But at Sarlak's funeral on Monday, dozens of mourners shouted slogans including "they killed him!" and "death to Khamenei", according to social media footage broadcast by opposition media based outside Iran, including Iran International and Radio Farda.
In his video Sarlak, who was in his 20s, included a recording of the voice of deposed shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, indicating his sympathy for the Iranian monarchy that was ousted by the 1979 revolution.
The ousted shah's US-based son, Reza Pahlavi, wrote on X that Sarlak had "stood against the oppression of the Islamic republic and sacrificed his life for Iran's freedom".
The Iranian Tasnim news agency on Monday rejected what it described as claims in "anti-revolution media" that he "was prosecuted for critical statements and was murdered in a suspicious manner", saying there had been no case against Sarlak and he had killed himself with a gunshot to the head.
Sarlak's father was shown in a video posted on social media by Iranian opposition outlets weeping and saying "they killed my boy".
But he later gave an interview to local state-run television urging people not to believe what they saw on social media.
Activists say the authorities are pressing an intensified crackdown three years after nationwide protests shook the authorities and months after the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June.
"External aggression has fueled deeper internal repression," the UN's special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Mai Sato, said last week, noting an "alarming" surge in executions and "mass arrests" of activists.
