Iran paves over 1979 revolution mass grave to build parking lot
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Satellite photo provided by Planet Labs PBC shows Iran paving over Lot 41, the burial site of 1979 revolution victims, at Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, Tehran (AP)
Dubai: In Tehran’s largest cemetery, Behesht-e Zahra, a desert-like stretch of sand dotted with scrawny trees has for decades served as the unmarked resting place of thousands executed in the aftermath of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Now, Lot 41, known among families as a burial ground for dissidents and political prisoners is being paved over to make way for a parking area, with the remains of those killed likely lying beneath the asphalt.
Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC reveal that construction began in early August. An image dated August 18 shows roughly half of Lot 41 freshly paved, with trucks, piles of asphalt and construction materials visible on site, indicating ongoing work. Long under state surveillance, the section, often referred to by officials as the “scorched section”, has seen previous acts of state-sponsored demolition, with grave markers vandalised and overturned.
Iranian officials have acknowledged the project but offered few details about those buried there. The development comes as a United Nations special rapporteur in 2024 accused Tehran of destroying graveyards in an effort to “conceal or erase data that could serve as potential evidence to avoid legal accountability” for past actions.
“Most of the graves and gravestones of dissidents were desecrated, and the trees in the section were deliberately dried out,” said Shahin Nasiri, a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam who has studied Lot 41. “The decision to convert this section into a parking lot fits into this broader pattern and represents the final phase of the destruction process.”
Last week, Tehran’s deputy mayor and the cemetery’s manager publicly confirmed the plan. “In this place, hypocrites of the early days of the revolution were buried and it has remained without change for years,” Deputy Mayor Davood Goudarzi told journalists in footage aired on state television. “We proposed that the authorities reorganise the space. Since we needed a parking lot, the permission for the preparation of the space was received. The job is ongoing in a precise and smart way.”
Mohammad Javad Tajik, who oversees Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, told the reformist newspaper Shargh that the parking facility will serve visitors to a neighbouring lot, where authorities intend to bury those killed in the Iran–Israel war in June. A major Israeli airstrike campaign that month killed senior military figures and others, with the government reporting over 1,060 dead and an activist group putting the toll above 1,190.
The plan appears to contradict Iran’s own cemetery regulations, which allow land to be repurposed more than 30 years after interments only with the consent of the deceased’s families. Outspoken Iranian lawyer Mohsen Borhani criticised the decision in Shargh, calling it neither moral nor legal. “The piece was not only for executed and political people. Ordinary people were buried there, too,” he said.
It remains unclear whether the human remains were removed before paving or remain under the new layer of asphalt. Iran has previously demolished burial grounds of victims of its 1988 mass executions which saw thousands killed without exhuming the bodies. Authorities have also targeted cemeteries belonging to the Baha’i religious minority and burial sites of protesters killed in nationwide uprisings, from the 2009 Green Movement to the 2022 Mahsa Amini demonstrations.
“Impunity for atrocities and crimes against humanity has been building for decades in the Islamic Republic,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the New York-based Centre for Human Rights in Iran. “There is a direct line between the massacres of the 1980s, the gunning down of demonstrators in 2009, and the mass killings of protesters in 2019 and 2022.”
Behesht-e Zahra meaning “Paradise of Zahra” opened in 1970 on the then-rural outskirts of Tehran to relieve pressure on the city’s crowded cemeteries. Since then, it has become the final resting place of hundreds of thousands, including many of Iran’s most prominent figures. It is also a landmark in the country’s history: upon his return from exile in 1979, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini went first to Behesht-e Zahra, where many killed in the uprising against the shah were buried. Khomeini’s courts later condemned to death those now interred in Lot 41.
After Khomeini’s own death in 1989, Iran built a towering golden-domed mausoleum for him adjoining the cemetery. As Behesht-e Zahra expanded, Lot 41 became encircled by new burial sections. Nasiri’s research estimates that between 5,000 and 7,000 people lie buried there communists, militants, monarchists and others deemed “religious outlaws” by the state. “Many survivors and family members of the victims are still searching for the graves of their loved ones,” he said. “They seek justice and aim to hold the perpetrators accountable. The deliberate destruction of these burial sites adds an additional obstacle to efforts of truth-finding and the pursuit of historical justice.”
With PTI inputs
