Geneva, April 03, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A brazen and barbaric act by the Iranian authorities has emerged in recent days in Tehran. A deceased Baha'i was buried on 30 March at Khavaran cemetery near Tehran by an agent of the Ministry of Intelligence without notifying the family of the deceased and violating Baha'i burial practices.
The agent had demanded that the family pay an exorbitant fee for burial within plots already owned and previously managed by the Baha'i community. He threatened the family that failure to meet his demands would result in the burial taking place in a site adjacent to the Baha'i cemetery previously used by the government to bury executed political prisoners.
And in a further development over the weekend, the same intelligence agent threatened to bury another Baha'i under the same circumstance if the family of the deceased also refused to yield to his demands.
“What threat do the dead pose that justifies this ruthless treatment by the Iranian government,” said Simin Fahandej, a Representative of the Baha'i International Community (BIC) to the United Nations, “that they extend the persecution of Baha'is even after their death, following a lifetime of oppression imposed on them in every aspect of their living moments?”
The previous Tehran Baha'i cemetery, a beautifully cultivated site of about 80,000 square meters built before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, was confiscated in 1980. A smaller barren plot of land adjacent to a mass grave site was then transferred to the community by Tehran’s Deputy Mayor.
Now the Baha'is are being asked for high fees to bury their dead in their own cemetery land and prevented from doing so according to Baha'i burial practices. Baha'i cemetery staff have been imprisoned and even bereaved family members threatened with imprisonment.
Numerous other Baha'i cemeteries around Iran have also been confiscated or desecrated over the past 40 years.
“Baha'is have faced burial issues for over four decades. But now, adding to the burden of grief of both those Baha'is whose family members are being buried without formal burial rites, as well as those families whose loved ones are already buried in a previously used plot of land, is beyond cruel,” Ms. Fahandej added.
Two years ago, as part of a systematic 43-year campaign to persecute the Baha'is, the Iranian authorities began to block the community from using their part of the Khavaran cemetery and demanded that Baha'is use an adjacent site which was previously used as a mass grave.
The Baha'is refused out of respect for the dead and their bereaved families.
Earlier this week, when the Baha'is wished to bury a prominent member of the community, Mr. Behzad Majidi, the Ministry of Intelligence agent Masoud Momeni attempted to charge the Baha'is an exorbitant sum to allow the burial within the Baha'i-owned cemetery plot. The Baha'is refused this on principle, as other minority communities with plots in the same larger complex do not face such fees. The action meant that the Baha'is were barred from using their own cemetery.
Mr. Momeni, who in April 2021 wrested management control of the Baha'i cemetery from the community, and whose Ministry of Intelligence affiliation was revealed by Tehran municipality staff, then buried Mr. Majidi atop the mass grave site without respecting Baha'i funeral practices or informing his loved ones, depriving them of the opportunity to be present.
His action was an obvious retaliation against the Baha'is and a violation of their property rights and funeral practices. Mr. Momeni has also instructed cemetery workers to remove the barrier dividers between the Baha'i cemetery and the mass grave—in a further attempt to erase the ownership and identity of the Baha'i cemetery.
“The inhumane actions of the Iranian government have no limits, not even in death,” said Ms. Fahandej, “Now the authorities are trying to persecute many at the same time, both out of disrespect for the burial rights of the Baha'is, and by the desecration of the resting place of thousands of others. Baha'is do not accept these efforts on principle.”
The latest persecution of the Iranian Baha'i community—which targeted individuals even as they grieved the loss of loved ones—comes as hundreds of families across Iran are mourning a widespread loss of life.
Background
James Samimi Farr
US Baha'i Office of Public Affairs
2028338990
usbahaimedia@usbnc.org