Desecration of the Baha'i cemetery in Shiraz

Statements

Desecration of the Baha'i cemetery in Shiraz

UN Human Rights Council 26th session, Agenda Item 4

Geneva—23 June 2014

Mr. President,

At the last session of the Human Rights Council, the delegation of the Islamic Republic of Iran stated in a right of reply that “citizenship rights for the Baha'is are completely respected” and that “if judicial action is taken for an individual it is as a result of unlawful conduct”.

A few weeks later, 40 to 50 bulldozers were lined up and began destroying the old Baha'i cemetery in Shiraz, where approximately 950 Baha'is are buried.  The site had been confiscated by the government in 1983, at which time its grave markers were leveled and its main buildings destroyed. Three years ago, its ownership was transferred to the Revolutionary Guards.

Among the persons at rest in the cemetery are the "ten Baha'i women of Shiraz," who were hanged on 18 June 1983. The youngest among them, Mona Mahmudnizhad, was only 17 at the time of her death. They were convicted of "crimes" such as being "Zionists" and the teaching of children's classes – the equivalent of "Sunday school" in the West; and during their trial, each of these women was told that if she recanted her faith, she would be released.

So one could sincerely ask:  if Baha'is in Iran enjoy their citizenship rights, why aren’t their dead respected?  If they commit unlawful conduct, why would recanting their faith dispense them from punishment?

And if perhaps the representatives of Iran use the excuse that the cemetery is old and needed for other purposes, then could they tell us why there is an empty plot of land next to the cemetery, and yet they choose not to use it but rather to exhume the graves of the hundreds of Baha'is who are buried there.

It is time for the international community and the High Commissioner to put pressure on the Iranian government to halt this heinous act -- to stop the desecration of the Shiraz cemetery, and to respect the rights of Iranian Baha'is, whether dead or alive.