Kamangir (Archer)

Radio Zamaneh mentions local reports [Persian] stating that there have been attempts to demolish Khavaran Cemetery. Believed by the family members of the victims of the political cleansing of the 1988 to be where their loved ones are buried, the 30m by 60m cemetery in southern east of Tehran has been the scene of protests in recent years. There are no gravestones or any other signs in the yard, except for a few put in place by people who claim to have received information regarding the burial places of their executed loved ones.

There is now a call to action to demand Navanethem Pillay, the High Commissioner of Human Rights at the UN, to use all his capacity to stop the Iranian regime from destroying this piece of land, one of the few signs of a brutal past which has never been forgotten.

To: InfoDesk@ohchr.org

Your Excellency Ms. Navanethem Pillay High Commissioner of Human Rights at the UN

With deep disbelief and disdain we have become aware that the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran have undertaken the destruction of Khavaran Cemetery, the only known site of mass and individual graves of the victims of the Great Massacre of political prisoners in the summer of 1988 and other non- Moslem dissidents executed in Iran through out the Seventies.

I beg your honor to urgently take action demanding the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran to immediately stop this barbaric operation.

The destruction of Khavaran is tantamount to the eradication of an important material evidence of a historic crime.

Respectfully,

More about Khavaran Cemetery in BBC Persian, Wikipedia