Iranian Who Set Himself Afire Surprised Friends, Kin

Friends and relatives of an Iranian bookstore owner who set himself afire Sunday during an anti-Khomeini protest in Westwood said they had no warning of the man’s plans and were shocked when it happened.

The man, Neusha Farrahi, 31, was reported in critical condition Monday at County-USC Medical Center with second- and third-degree burns over 70% of his body.

“This is something you hear about, even see pictures of,” said his brother, Payam Farrahi, who was standing next to Neusha at the protest at the Federal Building on Wilshire Boulevard.

“But to see it, to even feel the heat of the flames next to you, and to hear the screams of the person, especially when it is your own brother, that is, I cannot explain, extraordinary. I cannot even think now what all this means.”

Payam Farrahi said he extinguished the flames with a blanket he found nearby. Then, he and others said, friends immediately created a ring around Farrahi to prevent him from being crushed by the roughly 1,000 demonstrators in the area.

A Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokesman reported Sunday that the ring of demonstrators prevented authorities from reaching the burned man.

Friends of the injured man said Monday they were concerned that authorities were suggesting that the ring of supporters had wanted to make a martyr of Farrahi. Instead, they said, they were just trying to stop the chaotic crowd from trampling the man.

A sheriff’s deputy who was at the demonstration said Monday that the fire had been extinguished by the time deputies arrived and the ring opened to allow paramedics to treat the victim when they arrived minutes later.

Hamid Basgani, a longtime friend of Farrahi, said $10,000 has been raised so far for his hospital bills. He said Farrahi had no insurance.

The demonstration was called to protest the arrival in New York of Iranian President Ali Khamenei, who will address the United Nations today.

Farrahi, a leftist who opposes both the current government of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the return of a monarchy to Iran, had given a friend leaflets to distribute shortly before setting himself on fire.

“I was just reading them when I looked up and it was happening,” said Ali Forouzesh, a friend and co-worker at Farrahi’s Khaneh Ketab Iran (Iranian House of Books) in Westwood. “Nobody knew--nobody--that this was going to happen.”

“I do not wish to die, I love life but apparently in order to preserve the very same life the only alternative left is dying,” Farrahi wrote in a letter he prepared for distribution to the news media.