25 August 2025 :
NESSUNO TOCCHI CAINO – SPES CONTRA SPEM
Associazione Radicale Nonviolenta
Transnazionale Transpartitica
info@nessunotocchicaino.it
URGENT APPEAL BY HANDS OFF CAIN TO AVOID THE ERASING EVIDENCE OF 1980S EXECUTIONS BY DESTROYING BEHESHT-E-ZAHRA SECTION 41 IN IRAN
To the kind attention of
Volker Türk, High Commissioner for human rights
Mai Sato, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran
Antonio Tajani, the Minister for Foreign Affairs in Italy
Hands off Cain, the international organisation behind the approval of the UNGA Resolution for a universal moratorium on capital executions, urges all of you to act in order to stop the erasing evidence of 1980s executions in Iran by turning Section 41 of Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery into a parking lot.
Section 41 of Behesht-e-Zahra is the burial site of thousands of members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) executed during the early years of the revolution.
The announced plan to turn Section 41 of Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery into a parking lot, presented as a form of urban development, is an attempt to erase evidence of crimes against humanity committed by the regime during the 1980s and, by permanently desecrating the graves, prevent families from mourning.
In that part of the cemetery, the regime buried its victims in secret, often without notifying families, in mass graves without headstones.
The most infamous chapter came in the summer of 1988, when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa ordering the execution of all steadfast political prisoners. Special “death commissions” interrogated prisoners, often in minutes, asking if they supported the PMOI. Those who said yes—or refused to repent—were immediately sent to the gallows.
In just a few months, an estimated 30,000 political prisoners were massacred, the overwhelming majority of them PMOI members. The victims were buried in unmarked graves in cemeteries such as Khavaran, Behesht-e-Zahra, and other secret locations across Iran. Former UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, Prof. Javaid Rehman, has repeatedly emphasized that the mass executions of the 1980s, particularly the 1988 massacre, amount to crimes against humanity and genocide.
In that sense, Hands off Cain calls for an independent international investigation into the 1980s executions and the 1988 massacre as a fundamental step to achieve the truth and act for reconciliation. In that sense, being aware that the plan to destroy that pat of the cemetery of Behesht-e-Zahra is not simply about urban planning but part of the regime’s broader effort to silence history and a form of continuation of the horrible crime itself, we urge you to act to avoid the destruction of Section 41 that would transform the cemetery of martyrs in a cemetery of the knowledge and the truth.
