Iran paves over mass grave of 1979 revolution victims, turning it into a parking lot
DUBAI, the United Arab Emirates (AP)-Iran’s largest cemetery in the capital of a desert-like sand and weak tree patch, for decades has been the last resting place. Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Now, the expanding lot 41 Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery It becomes a parking space in Tehran, probably under the asphalt.
Images from Planet Labs PBC shows that the parking lot thrown on the site, where the opposition and others of Iran’s newly emerging theocracy and others were buried rapidly after arms or hanging.
The site, which has been watched for a long time, seeks any opposition or memorial signs that the authorities call the “Roasted Part”, the state -backed destruction in the past and the grave markers were destroyed and overturned. Iranian authorities, without going into details about the buried there, the decision to park accepted.
In 2024, the United Nations Special Rapporteur’s destroying Iran’s cemeteries described as an attempt to hide or delete data that can serve as potential evidence to prevent legal accountability ”.
Shahin Nasiri, a lecturer investigating 41 of the University of Amsterdam, said, “Most of the graves and graves of the dissidents were sanctified and the trees in the section were deliberately dried.”
Last week, both the Deputy Mayor of Tehran and the ruler of the cemetery accepted the plans to create a parking lot on the site.
“In this place, the hypocrites of the first days of the revolution were buried and remained unchanged for years, Dav He continued: “We suggested that the authorities reorganized the area. Since we needed a parking lot, permission was taken to prepare the area. The work continues in a definite and wise way.”
Satellite images show construction
Satellite photos show that the study started seriously at the beginning of August. The August 18 image, about half of the Lot 41 is freshly furnished, the construction material still shows on the field. Trucks and asphalt piles can be seen in the field, which indicates that the work continues.
Reformist newspaper Shargh quoted Mohammad Javad Tajik, who supervised the Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery, saying that the parking lot would help people visit a neighboring lot, they plan to bury those killed in the authorities Iran-Israeli War in June.
Israel’s great air strike campaign He killed the leading military generals and othersIncreasing the death of government officials More than 1,060 people killedWhen an activist group rises above 1,190.
The decision to reproduce the cemetery seems to be conflicting with Iran’s own arrangements, which allows a cemetery to reuse the land where the places took place after more than 30 years – the families of the dead are participating in the decision.
Mohsen Borhani, an openly anxiety lawyer in Iran, clearly criticized his decision to open a cemetery or legally in an interview with Shargh.
“The piece wasn’t just for execution and political people. Ordinary people were buried there.”
It remains unclear whether the human remains are under the asphalt layer or whether the Iranian authorities move the bones of the dead there. However, in recent years, Iran has destroyed other cemeteries for those killed in 1988 mass execution, which has seen that thousands of people have died and left their bones there.
The authorities also vandalized the cemeteries. Baha’iA religious minority in the country has been targeted for a long time, and the last 2009 green movement against Iran’s theocracy has hosted the recent protesters against TeoCrasy. 2022 Mahsa amini shows.
“Inspection of crimes against humanity and humanity has been built in the Islamic Republic for decades,” he said, ” He said. “There is a direct line between the massacres of the 1980s, the shooting of the demonstrators in 2009 and the collective massacres of the protesters in 2019 and 2022.”
The massive cemetery is the last resting place for many people
Behesht-e Zahra or “Paradise of Zahra” was opened in 1970 about the rural skirts of Tehran. As hundreds of thousands of Iranian, the country’s oil wealth increased rapidly, the pressure on Tehran’s cemeteries came to a point where the developing metropolis needed a place for all the dead.
For some of the most famous Iranians since then, the cemetery has long been resting and a point where history has returned to the country.
When he returned to Iran years later in exile in 1979, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini He first went to the cemetery, where some of those killed in the uprising against Shah were buried. Khomeini’s clergy courts later issued death penalties for those who intervened in Lot 41.
After his death in 1989, Iran built a tomb of gold -domed, rising for the cemetery. As Behesht-e Zahra grew up, Lot 41 found itself surrounded by a continuous expanding number of lots for graves.
Nasiri, his research with others, communists, militants, monarchists or others, whether Iran’s 41th Lot, 5,000 to 7,000 grave areas, he said.
Nasiri, “the survivors of the victims and family members are still looking for the graves of their loved ones,” he said. “They seek justice and aim to hold the perpetrators responsible. The deliberate destruction of these grave areas adds an obstacle to the efforts to find truth and the pursuit of historical justice.”
