Amnesty International warns about wall construction around Khavaran: International investigation should be conducted immediately

Amnesty International , warning about the construction of a wall by the Islamic Republic's security forces around the Khavaran Cemetery, the burial place of political prisoners executed in 2018, called on countries active in the UN Human Rights Council to immediately pave the way for an international investigation into these mass executions.

Amnesty International wrote in a statement on Tuesday, September 12, that these countries should "establish an international investigative mechanism into the extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances of thousands of political opponents and dissidents during this massacre, which constitute ongoing crimes against humanity."

Amnesty International also called on members of the United Nations Human Rights Council to demand that the Islamic Republic authorities end the "concealing of mass graves of victims of the 1967 massacre."

In recent years, families of victims of the mass executions of 1988, during which thousands of political prisoners died, have repeatedly warned about the destruction of the Khavaran Cemetery by security forces.

This cemetery, located outside Tehran, is believed to be the mass burial site of hundreds of political opponents who were secretly executed in the summer of 1988, and is considered the most famous burial site of these executed people in Iran.

In 2018, two organizations, Amnesty International and Justice for Iran, announced in a report that Islamic Republic authorities had "deliberately" destroyed mass graves of victims of the 2018 massacre of political prisoners in at least seven Iranian cities.

But the process of destruction and attempts to forget the remnants of this massacre has intensified over the past year.

Last year, some family members of those executed in the 1960s, in a statement they issued about digging new graves in the Khavaran cemetery, described the move as a new attempt by the Iranian government to forget "the remnants of its crimes in the 1960s and the summer massacre of 1988."

Also in August of this year, hundreds of family members of victims from different periods of the Islamic Republic of Iran's government called on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to prevent the Islamic Republic's "destruction and manipulation of the Khavaran Cemetery."

Amnesty International wrote in its new statement that in recent months, the Islamic Republic authorities have built a two-meter-high concrete wall around the Khavaran cemetery.

The organization expressed concern: "This construction has fueled serious concerns that, given the lack of visibility from the outside into the Khavaran mausoleum and the fact that security officers stationed at the cemetery entrance only allow close relatives of the executed to enter at certain times, authorities will be able to more easily destroy or tamper with the mausoleum from now on."

Diana Al-Tahawi, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International , said in this regard: "The Iranian authorities cannot simply build a wall around the crime scene and imagine that all their crimes will be erased and forgotten."

He added: "For 34 years, the authorities have systematically and deliberately concealed or destroyed key evidence that could be used to clarify the facts regarding the dimensions of the extrajudicial executions carried out in 2018, to administer justice, and to take reparations measures for the victims and their families."

According to Amnesty International, five security cameras have been installed both at the Khavaran mass grave site and on the street outside the cemetery to “intimidate grieving families and deter people from coming to the site to pay their respects.”

Also, according to the statement of this human rights organization, Iranian authorities have repeatedly bulldozed and destroyed sites that are confirmed or suspected to be the location of mass graves related to the 1967 massacre, and have destroyed signs installed and trees planted by families in order to hide the traces and evidence related to the 1967 massacre of prisoners.

The statement adds that Islamic Republic agents have even turned some mass graves into "garbage dumps."

Previously, there were reports of Baha'i families being forced to bury followers of this faith in the Khavaran cemetery in order to change its nature.

According to the families of the plaintiffs, the changes made to the Khavaran Cemetery were made with the aim of "identifying and controlling Baha'i families and the community."

Due to the cover-up by the Islamic Republic authorities, there are no exact statistics on the number of those executed, but based on some estimates, it is said that around five thousand political prisoners who were supporters of the People's Mojahedin Organization and leftist groups such as the Fedayeen Khalq and the Tudeh Party were executed in Iranian prisons in the summer of 1988.

In 2016, an audio file dated August 14, 1988, was released in which Ayatollah Montazeri, in a meeting with members of the decision- making body regarding these prisoners, referred to these executions as "the greatest crime of the Islamic Republic."

Source: Radio Farda