Note: Dissection of Body Abuse

The shocking report of crime concealment by 'Amnesty International' and 'Justice for Iran' following the unexpected and controversial discovery of a body believed to be that of Reza Shah has once again drawn global attention to the dark period of terror and massacre in the months following the revolution, referred to as the 'Spring of Freedom.' The brief revolutionary trials led to the immediate execution of hundreds of military personnel and officials of the Pahlavi regime, ethnic activists, Baha'is, and dissenters. However, the 'revolutionary executions' were merely a prelude to a much darker future. The presentation of documents regarding 120 mass graves across Iran indicates a widespread and often secret program with horrific and industrial dimensions aimed at the complete eradication of those labeled as 'opponents.' The mass executions of 1988, in which thousands of political prisoners were sentenced to death under specific short and long-term rulings, included many teenagers affected by the revolutionary atmosphere who were imprisoned for distributing various publications and were encouraged by 'revolutionary' organizations. The destruction of graves also has deep roots in Iranian culture and beliefs. Reports in Shia texts indicate that on the Day of Judgment, Imam Mahdi will bring the bodies of the killers of Imam Hussein out of their graves and burn them. It is likely that the burning of the bodies of the Umayyads during the Abbasid revolution was not unrelated to these reports. However, the program to destroy opponents also had horrific side effects. The handling of thousands of bodies posed a profound problem for officials who sought to keep the massacre of prisoners secret and feared leaving graves that could later become memorials for those martyrs. The victims of these massacres were categorized according to their political beliefs, and those deemed infidels were transported by refrigerated meat trucks to Kofrabad or Lanatabad, which is present-day Khavaran, where they were buried in shallow mass graves. This scene recalls the mass graves of Nazi Germany or the massacres of Bosnian Muslims in the 1990s. Religious and doctrinal considerations prevented the burial of 'infidels' and 'non-religious' individuals such as Marxists and Baha'is in Muslim cemeteries, and many cemeteries had to be cleansed of such elements lest they cause the torment of Muslim souls and hinder their salvation on the Day of Judgment. For this reason, eager revolutionaries, led by Ayatollah Khalkhali, attacked the bodies of those killed and executed during the revolution, exhuming them from their graves in Behesht Zahra cemetery and re-burying them in the surrounding deserts. In Shia jurisprudence, the burial of a deceased person is considered integral to the salvation of the departed on the Day of Judgment. Therefore, in the past, many went to great lengths to transport the bodies of their relatives to holy sites and bury them near the graves of the Imams to ensure their salvation on the Day of Judgment alongside the Imams. The historical precedent of body abuse of believers in Islam and Iranian popular culture has been held in special regard, and unlike the West, where cremation is accepted and environmentally justified, burning bodies is contrary to Islamic principles and a severe insult to the survivors. Customs and duties such as visiting graves, making vows, and even tying amulets and believing in the intercession of the deceased in the lives of the survivors are considered part of the Iranian people's culture. Perhaps for this reason, cemeteries, as semi-sacred spaces, have been ideal locations for assaults on the beliefs of dissenters. Yet, at the same time, the destruction of graves also has deep roots in Iranian culture and beliefs. Reports in Shia texts indicate that on the Day of Judgment, Imam Mahdi will bring the bodies of the killers of Imam Hussein out of their graves and burn them. It is likely that the burning of the bodies of the Umayyads during the Abbasid revolution was not unrelated to these reports. Some researchers attribute the historical precedent of exhumation to Turkic and Mongolian traditions, which believed that preserving the integrity of a person's or animal's skeleton was necessary for their revival, while the destruction of the remains of the dead would lead to the severance of lineage. During the Safavid revolution in the early 16th century, there are instances of exhumation and burning of the bodies of Sunni Sufi leaders intended to insult their followers or to take revenge on the ancestors of the Safavid family, who had apparently been oppressed. It is likely that the cursing of the graves of relatives in the Persian language has its roots in this era. In the Qajar period, with the emergence of Babism, body abuse took on a new dimension. After the execution of Sayyid Bab and one of his companions in 1850, their bodies, like Christ, were left hanging until sunset in Tabriz's Sabzeh Meydan and were later thrown into a ditch outside the city to be fed to stray dogs. However, Babis secretly stole the remains at night and kept them in a box. After decades of secrecy, in 1915, these remains were buried in Haifa, Palestine. In 1870, Sheikh Mazgani, an elderly man accused of participating in the Babi uprising around Kashan, requested two things from his executioner: first, water for ablution and the last prayer, and second, that his body not be paraded around the city. Similarly, when the young and popular cleric, Ali Jan Mahfroujaki, who had converted to Baha'ism, was handed over to the executioner in Tehran in 1883, Baha'i women paid with their money and jewelry to retrieve and bury Ali Jan's body. However, protests against his burial in a Muslim cemetery continued, leading to the intervention of Qajar officials to prevent riots and exhumation. In some cases, the bodies of dissenters were used as tools by some clerics in local rivalries and factions. Sayyid Abd al-Baqi, a courageous dyer, had stated in response to the governor of Kashan's insistence on renouncing his Babi/Baha'i beliefs, 'I dye a hundred of these turbans every year.' The governor ordered that he be beaten with a stick, and shortly thereafter, he died. His body was buried in a Muslim cemetery, but Mirza Habibullah, a cleric in Kashan, urged his followers to dig up Sayyid's grave and cut off his right hand with a shovel so that he could not receive his good deeds on the Day of Judgment. As mentioned in the Quran, on the Day of Judgment, the dead will rise from their graves, carrying their good deeds in their right hands and their sins in their left hands. Perhaps for this reason, Sayyid's relatives sought a fatwa from another cleric to preserve his dignity and grave, claiming that Sayyid had repented before his death and returned to the fold of Islam. In contemporary times, after two decades of Reza Shah's rule, during which urban riots and upheavals were less reported, the interest in body abuse was revived. Mohammad Reza Shah, in the early years of his reign, sought to strengthen the shaky foundations of his monarchy and did not hesitate to align with traditional clerics. For instance, in 1955, the Shah responded positively to Ayatollah Borujerdi's request to suppress Baha'is as a repayment for the clergy's cooperation in quelling the National Front and the Tudeh Party. For the first time, anti-Baha'i agents were equipped with state support and access to modern propaganda tools such as radio, leading to many being attacked in villages and towns, with some being killed. In a shocking scene, some individuals in Malayer exhumed the body of a Baha'i missionary, placing excrement in his palm to apparently deprive him of salvation in the afterlife. A few years before this incident, in 1951, during another anti-Baha'i riot in Amirabad village in the Yazd province, while gendarmerie forces were observing, a number of Baha'is were beaten, their homes and the local House of Worship were looted and burned. The attackers then assaulted the Baha'i cemetery, exhumed graves, and burned several bodies. Later, accompanied by drums and music, some rode bicycles toward Ardakan, where more joined them, and seeing no resistance from the authorities, they attacked the relatively wealthy Baha'i homes in Ardakan. Some Baha'is repented and continued their normal lives, but the majority, facing severe economic sanctions from local clerics, were forced to leave their homeland. Several years later, in an interview, the Friday prayer leader of Ardakan praised the 'determination and maturity' of Sayyid Ruhollah Khatami for expelling Baha'is, stating that 'they achieved results without anyone getting caught.' The process that began with the destruction, confiscation, and sale of Baha'i cemetery lands has now taken on broader dimensions. According to reports of grave destruction, the graves of athletes, poets, writers, and modernist Muslims have also fallen victim to organized 'serial destruction' and desecration. During the brief uprising of Khordad 15, 1963, led by Ayatollah Khomeini in protest against land reforms, the abolition of women's rights, and U.S. influence in Iran, hundreds of protesters were killed, and some attacked the Baha'i cemetery in Tehran, breaking several graves and burning bones. According to the Tehran police report, in addition to the graves, several jewelry stores owned by Baha'is were also looted. In 1981, the 80,000 square meter Baha'i cemetery in Tehran, known as 'Golestan-e Javid,' was confiscated. Ten years later, the local municipality began its demolition to construct a cultural complex in Khavaran. Of course, in Shia jurisprudence, the so-called 'improvement' of a cemetery is permissible after thirty years. It is surprising that a culture so meticulous about the resurrection of bodies on the Day of Judgment is so pragmatic regarding the reclamation of cemeteries, to the extent that even some schools during the Pahlavi era were built on abandoned cemeteries. However, the thirty-year tolerance for the deceased outside the faith was beyond the patience of the authorities. It was ten years after the confiscation that the construction of this cultural center, which required extensive excavation and the overturning of over a thousand bodies, was carried out. This complex, designed with a vast sunken courtyard and spacious underground, offered a modern solution for the religious problem of purifying the soil from 'contamination.' During the excavation and soil reclamation, the remains of over a thousand 'non-believers' apparently became the foundation for a new road and bridge. It seems that even the gravestones were repurposed after their inscriptions were ground off. The bitter memory of Khavaran, however, is intertwined with another bitter memory in contemporary Iranian history that remains alive in the minds of Iranians and continues to pose problems for those in power. In 2008, under the guise of the Khavaran organization plan, officials, with the help of bulldozers, began planting trees, ostensibly to create a park in this area. The trees may have been intended to purify a sinister space, erase the bitter memories of violence, or even conceal evidence of crimes against humanity, but instead, the bulldozers unearthed the clothing and personal belongings of the victims. These items symbolize the struggle of the deceased against the homogenization and absolutism of the ruling regime. The bulldozer that turns over the mass grave (like a giant crane that has taken the place of the gallows) signifies a modern and industrialized violence that is far more horrifying than the believers who were paraded around the city at the behest of a cleric. As noted in the report of the concealment of crime, the persistent obsession, the sustained efforts of officials, and the search for new solutions for the final destruction of the evidence of mass graves, including the construction of roads, pouring concrete, dumping garbage, and selling new graves (without informing buyers), continue unabated. This obsession is reminiscent of a criminal who feels an inner compulsion to return to the scene of the crime. The process that began with the destruction, confiscation, and sale of Baha'i cemetery lands has now taken on broader dimensions. According to reports of grave destruction, the graves of athletes, poets, writers, and modernist Muslims have also fallen victim to organized 'serial destruction' and desecration. Yet, despite the threats and surveillance of the authorities and the establishment of a security atmosphere, the relatives of the victims of the mass killings, known as the Mothers of Khavaran, still visit the nameless mass graves of Khavaran after thirty years to keep their memories alive.