Islamic Regime of Iran: Stop Destroying Individual & Mass Graves

Authorities in Islamic regime of Iran sometime during 9 - 16 January 2009, destroyed hundreds of individual and mass, unmarked graves by bulldozer in south of Tehran. These mass and individual unmarked graves belongs to political prisoners who executed by Iranian authorities during August 1988 and February 1989. Most of them are reposed by authorities in mass graves without any marks.

In August 1988 and February 1989 the Iranian authorities carried out a massive wave of executions of political prisoners – the largest since those carried out in the first and second year after the Iranian revolution in 1979. In all, between 4,500 and 10,000 prisoners are believed to have been killed.

Amnesty International calls on the Iranian authorities to immediately stop the destruction of hundreds of individual and mass, unmarked graves in Khavaran, south Tehran, to ensure that the site is preserved and to initiate a forensic investigation at the site as part of a long-overdue thorough, independent and impartial investigation into mass executions which began in 1988, often referred to in Iran as the “prison massacres”. The organization fears that these actions of the Iranian authorities are aimed at destroying evidence of human rights violations and depriving the families of the victims of the 1988 killings of their right to truth, justice and reparation. Link to Amnesty document

Note: I have to remind you Islamic Republic of Iran has had a long history of destroying graves specially religious minorities like Baha’is and ethnic minorities like Kurds and Balochis.

Also here is a documentary about horrifying experience of political prisoners in Iran; from people who witnessed first hand those executions; they got lucky to be alive today after spending years in prison and experiencing barbaric tortures, they survived and could run away out of that country at last but they still carry heartbreaking and devastating pain with themselves forever.

This documentary comes in 5 parts with English language subtitle.