Iranian authorities prohibiting Baha'is from a dignified burial:BIC

In Iran, Baha'is are facing many hardships to survive.Latest is related to burial practices. According to Geneva based Baha'i International Community,Aa 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, it said.  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,it alleged.

“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?” “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.

According to statement,theTehran Baha'i cemetery was  built in 80,000 square meters area before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But 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.Numerous other Baha'i cemeteries around Iran have also been confiscated or desecrated over the past 40 years.  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,it said.