Iran is desecrating the graves of thousands of dissidents slaughtered in the mass executions that followed Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution in an attempt to cover up crimes against humanity.
The plot at Behesht-e Zahra cemetery in Tehran, known as Lot 41, contained the remains of political opponents of the Ayatollah Khomeini who were rapidly buried following executions at gunpoint or by hanging 26 years ago.
Now Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s regime is asphalting the area and turning it into a car-park. The move is being seen by many as a desperate attempt to cover tracks, and a tacit acceptance by Iran’s religious theocracy that it is facing endgame.
It is unknown if the remains have been removed or are simply being covered over, but UN experts are convinced it is a cover-up for the regime’s crimes.
At a massive rally outside the UN in New York today, attended by thousands of Iranians from all over the US, author, commentator and former UN Human Rights Commissioner Linda Chavez said: “Not content with imprisoning, torturing and killing anyone who would disagree with them they have now sunk to a new low by desecrating the burial sites of dissidents interred in the 1980s.”
And a United Nations special rapporteur Shahin Nasiri said earlier Iran’s destruction of graveyards was an effort to “conceal or erase data that could serve as potential evidence to avoid legal accountability.”
Ms. Chavez addressed an audience of thousands, the biggest protest by ex-pat Iranians the US in New York in front of the UN, and, alluding to the recent Israeli and US airstrikes, said: “The time when the Ayatollahs could rule with an iron fist is coming to an end; in the last year we have watched their power slipping away.
“Their ability to produce a nuclear weapon has been dealt a death blow.”
She said the hated regime was an enemy of the people of Iran and of democracy and freedom and was more concerned with murdering its own people than helping them.
She added: “The country is facing a major drought but the Ayatollah seems uninterested in searching for a way to alleviate the people’s suffering.
“They are terrified of their own people. In 2025 alone the Mullahs have executed more than 800 people. In one week alone the regime hanged 15 political prisoners.”
The rally was organised by the National Council of Resistance of Iran whose President Elect Maryam Rajavi has drawn-up a 10-point plan for the restoration of democracy when the Mullah’s reign ends.
In a statement read to the crowds she said: “The message is very simple and clear, overthrow and democratic change – a democratic republic with freedom and democratic rights.”
