Cemetery of opponents of 1979 Islamic Revolution in Tehran becomes parking lot

The sandy desert area with dried tree trunks at Tehran's largest cemetery, the final resting place for some of the thousands killed in mass executions of opponents of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, is being turned into a parking lot, and the remains of the bodies will likely remain under the asphalt.

Images of Plot 41 of the vast Behesht-e Zahra cemetery from Planet Labs PBC show how a parking lot is being built over the site where opponents of the Iranian government were hastily buried after being executed by gunfire or hanging.

The site, long monitored by surveillance cameras for any sign of dissidents arriving or marking the memory of what authorities called the "burnt section," has previously been targeted by state-sponsored demolitions, with tombstones damaged and overturned.

Iranian officials confirmed the recent decision to build the parking lot, without going into details about those buried there.

In 2024, a United Nations special rapporteur described the destruction of that part of the cemetery as an attempt to "conceal or erase data that could serve as potential evidence of legal accountability" that does not exist.

"Most of the graves and tombstones of dissidents have been desecrated, and the trees in that area have been deliberately dried up," said Shahin Nasiri, a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam who has researched Plot 41.

"The decision to turn this section into a parking lot fits into a broader pattern and represents the final stage of the destruction process," Nasiri said.

Tehran's deputy mayor and the cemetery's director confirmed last week a plan to build a parking lot at the site.

"The hypocrites from the early days of the Revolution were buried there and it has remained unchanged for years," Tehran Deputy Mayor Davud Gudarzi told reporters in a video broadcast on state television.

"We proposed that the authorities reorganize the space. Since we needed parking, permission was obtained to prepare the space. The work is being carried out in a precise and smart manner," Gudarzi added.

Satellite images show that major construction work began in early August. An image from August 18 shows that about half of Plot 41 has been freshly paved, with construction materials still there. Trucks and piles of asphalt can be seen, indicating that work is continuing.

The reformist newspaper Sharq quoted Mohammad Javad Tajik, the director of Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery, as saying that the parking lot would make it easier for citizens to visit the neighboring plot, where authorities plan to bury those killed in June of this year's Israeli war against Iran.

A major Israeli campaign of airstrikes has killed prominent military generals, with government officials estimating the death toll at more than 1.060 people, while an activist group has estimated the number at more than 1.190.

The decision to change the purpose of part of the cemetery appears to be in contradiction with Iranian regulations that allow a cemetery to be repurposed after more than 30 years if the families of the buried agree to the decision.

In an interview with Sharq, liberal lawyer in Iran Mohsen Borhani criticized the decision to pave the cemetery as immoral and illegal.

However, it is still unclear whether the remains of the bodies are under the asphalt, or whether the authorities have moved them somewhere.

Iran has in recent years destroyed other cemeteries of those killed in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988, when bodies were left at the execution sites.

Authorities have also vandalized cemeteries for Baha'is, a religious minority that has long been their target, and the graves of protesters killed in recent anti-government protests - from the Green Movement in 2009 to demonstrations for young Iranian woman Mahsa Amini in 2022.

"Impunity for crimes and crimes against humanity has been growing for decades in the Islamic Republic," said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran.

"There is a direct connection between the massacres of the 1980s, the shooting of protesters in 2009, and the mass killings of protesters in 2019 and 2022," Gaemi assessed.

Behesht-e Zahra, or "Paradise of Zahra," opened in 1970 in what was then a rural suburb of Tehran. As hundreds of thousands of Iranians flooded into Tehran during the Shah of Iran's rule, and as the country's oil wealth grew rapidly, pressure on Tehran's cemeteries grew to the point that the growing metropolis needed more burial sites.

That cemetery has long been the resting place of some of the most famous Iranians since, but also the point at which history turned.

Upon returning to Iran in 1979, after years in exile, the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini first traveled to the cemetery, where some of those who died in the uprising against the Shah were buried.

After his death in 1989, Iran built an imposing, gold-domed mausoleum for Khomeini, connected to the cemetery. As Behesht-e Zahra grew, Plot 41 found itself surrounded by an increasing number of tombs.

Nasiri said his research suggests that within Plot 41 are 5.000 to 7.000 graves of those whom Iran "considers religious outlaws" whether they are communists, activists, monarchists or others.

"Many survivors and family members of the victims continue to search for the graves of their loved ones. They seek justice and strive to hold the perpetrators accountable. The deliberate destruction of these graves represents an additional obstacle to efforts to find the truth and the pursuit of historical justice," Nasiri said.