In 1988 Ayatollah Khomeini ordered the execution of nearly 5000 political prisoners. Their bodies were dumped in mass graves at unmarked sites in Khavaran cemetery.
Khavaran cemetery, located in southeast Tehran, is a place where religious minorities bury their dead. Jews, Christians and the Baha’is are not allowed to be buried in other cemeteries on the grounds that "they are apostates and must not contaminate the resting place of Muslims.”
The section where these political prisoners were buried was named by the authorities Lanat-abad (لعنتآباد), the dwelling of the damned.
In February 2009 the Islamic Republic of Iran announced its plan to demolish the cemetery and run a highway through it. By this they intended to erase all evidence of the massacre. However, the cemetery still stands and every September on the anniversary of the massacre the authorities have blocked and harassed Mothers of Khavaran, a group consisting of the families and supporters of the executed, to visit the cemetery. On May 18, 2014 Mothers of Khavaran received the 2014 Gwangju Prize for Human Rights.
"The Poem" by Mohsen Emadi is a short film about Khavaran; it is about human brutality in the name of religion and ideology. The film has been screened in Spain, Brazil, Mexico and Portugal. Emadi is a poet, literary translator and filmmaker.
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