Mr. President,

Last week, in a heart-rending act, Iranian authorities leveled over 30 Bahá’í graves in Tehran. Not only plots of land—these were human beings, each with a lived story of tremendous suffering and persecution for their faith. Among them was an elderly woman whose husband was executed for being a Bahá’í, her sons banned from universities, also for their faith, and then both imprisoned for years, resulting in her raising their young children. When she died, her burial in the Bahá’í cemetery was refused. So, her family donated her body to science as an act of service to society. Cruelly, the hospital rejected her body, labeling it as “religiously unclean”. Persecution continued, when her body was then forcibly buried in a mass gravesite. And now, barely three months later, that site has been leveled.

Today, we ask the Iranian government, what threats do the dead pose to society? How do you justify your acts, in your conscience, knowing that even in death you do not leave Bahá’ís in peace, imposing brutality on them even in their grief? There is no religious or cultural norm that would ever support this kind of cruelty.

The Fact-Finding Mission, in its report, documented an increase in the persecution against religious minorities since last year’s uprising. The Bahá’í community, a long-suffering group, is one such example. We call for the extension of the mandate of the Fact-Finding Mission as it ensures accountability of Iran for its harrasment of the Bahá'ís and all others seeking equality.