Mashhad, Behesht-e Reza Cemetery

At the far end of the Behesht-e Reza Cemetery in Mashhad, there is a barren area of land where the corpses of political prisoners executed in the 1980s are buried. According to the statement of a mortuary worker at this cemetery, the prisoners executed during the 1988 massacre in Mashhad were buried in  two different parts of this cemetery, some at the back of this cemetery and others in another vacant part of the cemetery.

This information is confirmed by the testimonies by victims’ families who visited the cemetery in the summer and autumn of 1988. They report seeing large areas of raised and disturbed soil with protruding body parts.  170 political prisoners are believed to be buried in mass graves in Behesht-e Reza Cemetery in Mashhad.