The body of Afagh Khosravi-Zand, a Baha'i citizen, was buried in Khavaran "against the family's heartfelt wishes"

Kamran Rahimian, a Baha'i citizen, reported that his mother, Afagh Khosravi-Zand, was buried in Khavaran "against the family's heartfelt wishes" following the university's refusal to accept her body. In an Instagram note on Thursday, December 14, he mentioned the intervention of a "hidden will" and stated that the refusal to accept his mother's body was "contrary to the university's initial acceptance." According to this note, "obstructions" in the form of phrases such as "several days have passed since the time of death," "the corpse is infectious," and "the university does not need a corpse" led to the burial of this Baha'i citizen's body "without the family's accompaniment" in Khavaran cemetery. The family of this Baha'i citizen had previously announced that in response to the Iranian government's pressure to bury Afagh Khosravi-Zand in Khavaran, they would donate her body for "the benefit of medical students' learning." Following the death of this Baha'i citizen, 14 political prisoners expressed their condolences to her family in a letter titled "In mourning for a mother of suffering and resilience." According to the Telegram channel "Charter of Freedom, Welfare, Equality," the "goal of the Islamic Republic" in burying Baha'i citizens in Khavaran cemetery is to "destroy the evidence of the crime of the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988, who are buried in mass graves in Khavaran." The report states that "the families of Khavaran have repeatedly protested and condemned this action," including a letter issued in May 2023 by a group of Khavaran families condemning this act and calling for an end to the government's efforts to destroy evidence of the crime in Khavaran. The report emphasizes that this process is also ongoing "in similar cemeteries in other cities in Iran such as Tabriz, Mashhad, Ahvaz, and Amol." Farhad Sabetan, spokesperson for the worldwide Baha'i community, considered the deprivation of Baha'is in Iran "of almost all their civil and citizenship rights" and that even after death, they are "not allowed to be buried" a concerning issue.