Commemoration of Executed Political Prisoners of the 1980s Behind Closed Doors in Khavaran

The families of political prisoners executed in the 1980s held a memorial ceremony on Friday, March 15, behind closed doors in Khavaran. According to the Telegram channel "Manifesto of Freedom, Welfare, Equality," this ceremony took place under conditions where, for the past year, security agents of the Islamic Republic have "closed the gates of Khavaran cemetery to families and do not allow them to commemorate their loved ones at their graves." Based on this report, the Khavaran families protested the ongoing repression and harassment of families over the past 40 years by writing a letter to Masoud Pezeshkian, the President of the 14th government of the Islamic Republic, stating that the "right to mourn" is their most basic right, but they received no response other than the continued closure of Khavaran's gates. The families of the executed political prisoners also protested the burial of deceased Bahá'ís in the mass grave section of political prisoners executed in the summer of 1988, an action that has also garnered the support of Bahá'ís. The Khavaran families have stated that this action is a policy aimed at erasing and eliminating the evidence of the organized crime of the massacre and genocide of political prisoners in the summer of 1988. Previously, there have been numerous reports about preventing the entry of families of political prisoners executed in the 1980s to Khavaran cemetery to hold memorial ceremonies for the executed. Regarding Khavaran cemetery, the Iranian government has long been preventing the presence of families of executed political prisoners while simultaneously forcing the burial of Bahá'í citizens in the section related to political prisoners executed in the summer of 1988. The Khavaran families assess the government's aim in this action as the erasure of "the evidence of the crime of the massacre of political prisoners in the 1980s, especially in the summer of 1988" and have repeatedly protested this process. Khavaran cemetery, located in the southeastern part of Tehran along the Khavaran road, adjacent to several cemeteries belonging to religious minorities, is the burial site of thousands of political and ideological prisoners executed in the summer of 1988, who were secretly and namelessly buried in mass graves. These political prisoners, who were members and supporters of leftist organizations and the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, were executed by the order of a body known as the "Death Commission." According to the Iran Human Rights Campaign, "the mass execution of political prisoners in the months of Mordad and Shahrivar of 1988 is considered the darkest part of Ebrahim Raisi's list of crimes, and even after nearly 36 years, there is still little information available about it."