In Iran, Bahai minority faces persecution even after death
A flattened patch of earth is all that remains of where the graves once stood — evidence, Iran’s Bahais say, that their community is subjected to persecution even in death.
Beneath the ground in the Khavaran cemetery in the southeastern outskirts of Tehran lie the remains of at least 30 and potentially up to 45 recentlydeceased Bahais, according to the Bahai International Community (BIC).
But their resting places are no longer marked by headstones, plaques, and flowers, as they once were, because, said the BIC, this month Iranian authorities destroyed them and then levelled the site with a bulldozer.
The desecration of the graves represents a new attack against Iran’s biggest nonMuslim religious minority which has, according to its representatives, been subjected to systematic persecution and discrimination since the foundation of the Islamic republic in 1979.
The alleged destruction has been condemned by the United States, which has also criticised the ongoing persecution of the Bahais, as have United Nations officials.
Unlike other minorities, Bahais do not have their faith recognised by Iran’s constitution and have no reserved seats in Parliament. They are unable to access the country’s higher education and they suffer harassment ranging from raids against their businesses to confiscation of assets and arrest.
Even death does not bring an end to the persecution, the BIC says.
According to the community, following the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, the authorities confiscated two Bahaiowned burial sites and now forcibly bury their dead in Khavaran.
The cemetery is the site of a mass grave where political prisoners executed in 1988 are buried.
“They want to put pressure on the Bahai community in every way possible,” Simin Fahandej, the BIC representative to the United Nations, said.
“These people have faced persecution all their lives, were deprived of the right to go to university, and now their graves are levelled.”
The U.S. State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom said it condemned the “destruction” of the graves at the cemetery, adding that Bahais “in Iran continue to face violations of funeral and burial rights”.
The razing of the graves comes at a time of intensified repression of the Bahai community in Iran, which representatives believe is still hundreds of thousands strong.
Senior community figures Mahvash Sabet, a 71yearold poet, and Fariba Kamalabadi, 61, were both arrested in July 2022 and are serving 10year jail sentences. Both were previously jailed by the authorities in the last two decades.
At least 70 Bahais are currently in detention or are serving prison sentences.
Meanwhile an additional 1,200 are facing court proceedings or have been sentenced to prison sentences, according to the United Nations.
The Bahais have a spiritual centre in the Israeli port city of Haifa, but its history dates back to well before the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.