Destruction of Khavaran, Destruction of Collective Memory
On June 13, 2022, Iranian human rights activist Mansoureh Behkish met with Dr. Javaid Rehman, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, to discuss the massacres of the 1980s in the Islamic Republic and the history of the Khavaran cemetery. This meeting occurred at a "Human Rights and Religion" gathering at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. Mrs. Behkish lost seven family members during the mass executions of political prisoners in the 1980s in Iran.
A few days before the meeting with Dr. Rehman, Ms. Behkish, with the help of a group of Khavaran petitioners, published a petition on the Daadkhast website, the subject of which was the destruction of the Khavaran cemetery by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The text of this petition, signed by more than seven hundred people, was given to Javaid Rehman in this meeting. Daadkhast platform published another petition last year in which nearly five hundred signatories protested to the Islamic Republic of Iran for its intention to make the land of Khavaran a burial place for the deceased of the Baha'i faith.
- Petition: Stop the Destruction of Khavaran Cemetery! (June 8, 2022)
- Petition: Don't Trample on the Dignity of Khavaran! (April 26, 2021)
Khavaran, in the southeast of Tehran, is the burial place of thousands of political prisoners who were executed secretly and anonymously in the 1980s, especially in the summer of 1988. From that date until now, the families of the dead, especially the "Mothers of Khavaran," hold a memorial ceremony for their fallen children in this place every year, young people whose execution date and exact burial location were never announced. In recent years, the Islamic Republic has gradually destroyed the Khavaran graveyard.
Mansoureh Behkish said to Javaid Rehman, "Why do they keep destroying Khavaran and other nameless and unmarked graves all over Iran? Why are the families who seek to discover the truth and establish justice constantly harassed? And why is this not an important issue in your report?"
Ms. Behkish said that in the past forty years, every tombstone the survivors left in the Khavaran cemetery and every flower and sapling they planted in memory of their loved ones were destroyed by order of the Islamic regime.
Ms. Behkish said, "Between January 9 and 16, 2009, Khavaran cemetery was bulldozed, and we still don't know if they removed the bones of our loved ones, especially those buried in mass graves. . . During this period, the government repeatedly pressured the Baha'i community to bury their dead on the mass graves of our loved ones in Khavaran . . . Last year, the security forces once again dug ten new graves on top of the mass graves of Khavaran, forcing Baha'i citizens to bury their dead in those graves. But we, the families, and the Baha'i community protested and managed to stop them. A month ago, they destroyed the old wall and the main door of Khavaran and installed a high concrete wall like a prison wall in its place and completely separated the cemetery from the outside world. They installed several long-standing cameras, like highway cameras, inside and outside Khavaran and in front of the Baha'i cemetery. We know that they intend to exert more pressure to intimidate and harass families so that they can silence us."
Khavaran's dignity should not be violated! In the opinion of the rulers during these four decades of oppression, the land of Khavaran was just a place to bury nameless bones, a cursed land for those without religion! But Khavaran is the grave of the loved ones of Khavaran families. The graves of their loved ones buried in blood should not be encroached upon!
Khavaran is not an ordinary cemetery. It is a compact history of pain, genocide, and injustice, which has been honored by the unmarked mass graves. Khavaran is a memory that should not be erased, a testimony that should not be suppressed.
Daadkhast Team
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