The Muslim Network for Baha'i Rights » Desecration

Yet Another Baha’i Cemetery Desecrated in Iran

Muslim Network for Baha'i Rights — Sun, 02 May 2010 22:05:04 +0000

Reporters and Human Rights Activists in Iran (RAHNA) reported today about the desecration by an unidentified group of the Baha’i cemetery in Damavand.

According to the report, an unidentified group entered the cemetery on April 24th, and using heavy machinery overturned every gravestone in the cemetery. The cemetery was completely leveled. Complaints to authorities have resulted in nothing. The cemetery was established in 2005 following the illegal confiscation of the lots of the previous two cemeteries of Damavand by the Ministry of Intelligence.

Desecration of Baha’i cemeteries has been a long-held unofficial policy of the Iranian regime. In 2009, the Baha’i cemeteries in Semnan, Najafabad and Vilashahr, Abadan and Khorramshahr and Sangsar were desecrated. The destruction of cemeteries has been used by the Iranian regime to prevent Baha’is from burying their dead in their towns, in contradiction to Baha’i teachings. The fact that the destruction operations are usually carried out using heavy machinery means that the people behind the attacks are not just random anti-Baha’i vigilantes. The fact that no charges are ever pressed against those criminals signals to them that the regime supports their abhorrent actions.

Another Baha’i Cemetery Desecrated in Iran

Muslim Network for Baha'i Rights — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:53:07 +0000

The following are a photos from the Abadan and Khoramshahr cemetery. It was raided during Azar 1388 (early December 2009) and many graves and walls were destroyed.

For more photos see in the Iran Press Watch post in Farsi.

Round-up of Updates about the Ongoing Persecution of Baha’is in Iran

Muslim Network for Baha'i Rights — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:38:54 +0000

The following roundup, based on translations from Iran Press Watch and reports from the Committee of Human Rights Reporter, the Human Rights Activists News Agency, Human Rights Activists in Iran, the Baha’i World News Service and Iran Human Rights Voice show the extent of ongoing persecution in Iran. It includes harassment, death threats and arsons carried out by vandals, but also state persecution against Baha’is in the form of arrests, interrogations, denial of education and so on.

Unknown men bulldozed over the Baha’i cemetery of Vilashahr and Najafabad, near Isfahan. This is the 18th time that cemetery has been destroyed. According to the Committee of Human Rights Reporters, following the destruction, a Baha’i family was not given permission to bury a member of the family in that cemetery. Authorities also impeded the burial of a Baha’i men in Semnan by first denying them a birth certificate, then by demanding that the pay four times as much for the needed certificate. Finally, after acquiescing to the persistent pleas of the family, the funeral was carried out. Toward the end of the ceremony, local hooligans harassed the grieving family with insults, and later a small group of protesters marched in Semnan, chanting anti-Baha’i slogans. Also in Semnan, Susan Tebyanian-Jabbari was released from detention to find a letter notifying her that her work permit has been revoked. Near Semnan, the crops of a Baha’i farmer were torched.

Many Baha’i students who passed the college entrance exam were denied education, on account of “incomplete application”. This is a known tactic used by Iranian authorities to disguise the fact that Baha’is are routinely denied the basic human right of education. In addition, a Baha’i student was expelled from Bandar Abaas University.

The courts have had a busy time trying Baha’is across Iran based on the usual charges of teaching the Baha’i Faith, acting against state security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic. In Semnan, Behnam Moteareffi was sentenced for 18 months, and Ali Eshsani for two years in prison, two years in exile and a fine. The Revolutionary Court in Shahr-e-Rey is now trying a Baha’i for sedition, insulting Islam, membership in illegal groups and Messianic claims. The Revolutionary Court in Sari managed to hand down no less than six sentences for Baha’is in just two days. In Ghaem-Shahr the Iranian authorities closed down the businesses of an imprisoned Baha’i couple.

Baha’is cannot lead a normal life in Iran. They are discriminated against, harassed, put on trial, imprisoned and even killed solely for practicing a different religion. Please don’t let their suffering be forgotten. Make your voices heard.

Interview with family of Farhang Mavaddat, a Baha’i executed in Iran in 1981

Muslim Network for Baha'i Rights — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 19:37:17 +0000

The Plano Star recently conducted an interview with the wife and son of Farhang Mavaddat, a Baha’i who was executed with two other members of the Tehran Local Spiritual Assembly on trumped-up charges of espionage and insulting religion in 1981. In the interview, Farhang’s wife, Mehri, described the inhumane conditions that her husband was held in. During her short visits to Iran’s notorious Evin Prison, where her husband was confined, she witnessed the filthiness of the quarters and heard about the overflowing rooms, where prisoners had to take turn in lying down. During that time Farhang was tortured and pressured to recant his Faith.

On June 23, the day the three Baha’is were hanged in Tehran, the regime brought in other Baha’is to witness the execution. The misery for the Mavaddat family didn’t end there. Only two months after the body was returned to the family and buried in a Baha’i cemetery, it was completely destroyed. Mehri, herself a member of the Local Spiritual Assembly was arrested, interrogated and asked to identify other Baha’is. After she managed to post bail, she spent several months in hiding, and in 1982 escaped from Iran.

Video of desecration of Baha’i cemetery in Semnan

Muslim Network for Baha'i Rights — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:22:36 +0000

Human Rights Activists in Iran has posted a video of the desecration that befell the Baha’i cemetery in Semnan on the 15th of February.

“My esteemed fellow countrymen and women, the people of Iran”

Muslim Network for Baha'i Rights — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 05:47:04 +0000

Almost 30 years ago, Manousheed Bagha’s mother was executed for the sole purpose of being an adherent of the Baha’i Faith. Upon hearing that the cemetery of Khavaran, where her mother was buried, faces the threat of destruction, she wrote the following heartfelt letter (via HRA Iran) to her countrymen.

With sadness, dismay, a heavy heart and disappointment, I turn to you for refuge and justice. I turn to you who have inherited a nation whose “power and glory shone out like the morning about the world’s horizons.” I turn to you who are the children of just kings such as Cyrus the Great. I implore you to be the guardians of justice.

A few days ago, just by coincidence, I came across an article covering the destruction of the Khavaran cemetery in Tehran. At first glance, I overlooked this article because the destruction of Bahá’í cemeteries in Iran has become a common occurrence during the past few years, but after reading the article more thoroughly, I realized that this was the place where my mother had been buried.

It has been 27 seven years since Shidrukh Amirkia Bagha was killed secretly in our land. Her only crime was being a Bahá’í and refusing to recant her faith. She and a few other Bahá’ís who had been arrested with her were killed and buried, in secret, without the knowledge of family members, in a plot designated for “infidels.” Evidence shows that if only she had recanted her belief in Bahá’u'lláh she would have been released, but she was brave, determined, and steadfast in her conviction.

Her faith in Bahá’u’lláh taught her to love without expectation and her goal in life was to serve whoever crossed her path – for this she believed was the crown on her head. Her faith taught her to sacrifice her life for the good of humanity and to “contribute towards building a society founded on enlightened spiritual and social principles…” How could anyone recant a faith that inspires such principles, even when faced with death?

Alas, they snatched the life from her tender limbs and took her from us. They deprived her grandchildren of knowing her in this mortal life and seeing their grandmother grow old. They took away the bounty of receiving the tender compassion a grandmother so often bestows upon her grandchildren.

I have so often dreamed that I would one day be able to visit her gravesite and tell her about the lost moments I did not get to spend with her, and to be able to convey how much I missed her, but without a gravestone over which to cry, this is regrettably no longer possible.

I am well aware that many loved ones were buried there, and I extend my sympathies to their relatives. I pray and hope that the members of my noble birth land will once again receive the bounties of God and return to the days of glory and justice.

Manousheed Bagha

In pictures: complete destruction of Qaemshahr cemetery

Muslim Network for Baha'i Rights — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 05:34:21 +0000

Human Rights Activists in Iran has posted pictures of the complete destruction that has befallen the Baha’i cemetery in Qaemshahr. The first attack against the cemetery occurred on the 23rd of October, where almost 80% of the graves were destroyed by bulldozers, and less than 2 weeks later, a second attack was carried out.

In yesterday’s midnight attack, undercover agents accompanied a truck and bulldozer to the cemetery, where the gravestones were removed and the ground was completely flattened.

To read HRA Iran’s report and view the image, click here.

Report indicates cemetery is under threat

Muslim Network for Baha'i Rights — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 05:27:43 +0000

In his blog, Arash Kamangir writes that there are local reports indicating that attempts have been made to demolish the Khavaran cemetery in South East Tehran. Khavaran cemetery is believed to be the burial site of the victims of the mass political executions of 1988, and families frequently gather at the cemetery to commemorate their loved ones.

But prior to that, Kharavan was mainly used as a graveyard for religious minorities, including Baha’is.

Since the revolution, tens of Baha’i graveyards have been desecrated under numerous pretexts; even the dead are not spared from persecution.

A call to action has been organized to demand Navanethem Pillay, the High Commissioner of Human Rights at the UN, to prevent Iran from destroying the cemetery

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,