[In the past two weeks, several times this site has reported on the destruction of the Baha’i Cemetery of Darzikola, a village near Qa’emshahr. On Monday, 3 November 2008, a video of the aftermath of this destruction was published by Human Rights Activists of Iran along with a brief statement: http://www.hrairan.org/Archive_87/1166.html. A translation of this statement follows.]
In an illegal and callous act, on the morning of October 23, the Baha’i cemetery of the town of Qa’emshahr in the province of Mazandaran was destroyed. In this instance, however, the brazenness and abhorrence of this action far exceeded similar acts in such places as Isfahan, where its Baha’i cemetery was desecrated not long ago. Nearly 80% of the Baha’i graves in Qa’emshahr were destroyed by bulldozers and only a few graves remained without significant damage.
From what has been learned, it appears that this criminal deed took place at the middle of night. This inference appears reasonable since on Thursday morning, when the Baha’is visited the cemetery, they saw the magnitude of the devastation. They immediately notified the authorities and several military officers along with the parliamentarian of Qa’emshahr, a certain Ezatu’llah Akbari, came to the scene of this incident. However, without paying the least attention, this group left and as of now, they have taken no action whatsoever to identify the perpetrators of this crime.
The video of this destruction appears below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiEne2brLjs]
By Ahang Rabbani
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