opinion article
August 26, 2009
On Reports of Secret Burials
Hanif Mazruie
hanifmazruie(at)gmail.com The news of the secret burial of martyrs of recent protests has gained widespread coverage in the media in recent days. Norooz website, the media arm for the Islamic Iran Participation Front [Jebheye Mosharekat Iran Eslami] has been under attack by government supporters for exposing the issue.

As a journalist and editor-in-chief of Norooz, I will attempt to explain how this news was uncovered, how it began and how it arrived at this point.

1 – On July 12, the mother of one of the victims of the post-election turmoil informed a Norooz reporter that a number of corpses had been stored at the Aminzadeh cold storage facility, one of the country’s largest industrial cold storage centers located in Islamshahr, south of Tehran. She said that while looking for his son’s corpse in this cold storage facility, she saw a large number of bodies that were piled on top of each other. The observations of this mother dated to two days earlier, ie July 9.

2 – On July 12 Norooz published the statements of this mother. However, since sufficient confirmation was not available to confirm the news, the report started with “It has been heard.”

3 – After the publication of the report, Norooz website colleagues began searching for evidence and took steps to gather information pertaining to the issue. We learned from the testimony of Aminzadeh cold storage facility personnel that on the night of the publication of the news, a significant amount of unusual traffic took place at the facility, as vehicles moved certain things out of the compound.

4 – In the days following the publication of the report, we received news that several of the corpses delivered to the families were completely frozen. Photographs of the martyrs that were published on Norooz website as well, belonging to martyr Behzad Mohajer, clearly indicated that the corpse of this person was totally frozen. Bodies that are kept at the coroner’s office, however, are never frozen to such degree, even after 40 days. This issue confirmed Norooz’s report about the storage of corpses at an industrial cold storage facility.

5 – After continued investigation, we concluded that on July 11, a significant number of vehicles that did not belong to the Behesht Zahra cemetery transported corpses to the cemetery. At that time too, there were reports that some corpses had been transported to Isfahan and outskirts of Tehran. So far, we have not been able to confirm those reports. With respect to Behesht Zahra, however, reports that were confirmed by the cemetery’s personnel indicate that on July 11 and July 14, a number of non-standard vehicles, which are not used to transport corpses, came to and left Behesht Zahra.

6 – Further investigation revealed that several corpses were taken to and buried anonymously at the newly-formed section 302 in Behesth Zahra, located outside of the cemetery’s general area.

7 – Based on this information, a week before our final report we were able to gather all the necessary evidence and were even in the possession of the burial certificate numbers of the martyrs. Due to the sensitivity of the news, we first contacted the Behesht Zahra cemetery officials. They neither confirmed nor denied the news, and did not give us any convincing answers.

8 – In the end, the editorial board of the Norooz website reached the conclusion that the best way to commemorate the rights of the martyrs was to publish the details of this event, especially because a large number of families are still waiting since the early post-election days for the return of their loved ones and are unaware of their fates. We published the report on July 21 while accepting the costs of doing so.

9 – On that same day, July 2, Majid Nasirpour, member of the Majlis Social Committee reacted to Norooz’s report by claiming that the Majlis will investigate the group burial of the martyrs. The fact that a lawmaker promised to investigate the matter caused us much hope.

10 – To out utter surprise, however, on that same day Farhad Tajari, member of the Majlis National Security Committee and the committee to investigate prison and detainee treatment announced that the news is one hundred percent false. Mr. Tajari’s denial took place within hours of the publication of Norooz’s original report. He could have at least visited the Behesht Zahra cemetery and the specific location revealed by Norooz to investigate. However, he said that the report was false without any serious inquiry.

11 – As a first step at Norooz we tried to report this issue in brief terms. After our reports were rejected, we decided to provide the burial certificate numbers as proof that what we published was supported with evidence.

12 – As is normal procedure at Behesht Zahra, when someone passes away and a burial certificate is issued, a little plaque is set aside for that person that contains the person’s name, burial site and other related information. The video clip that our Norooz colleagues prepared of the martyrs’ graves clearly show that, while other graves that belong to the public include such plaques, some graves do not have them.

13 – Mr. Hamid Reza Katouzian, who serves on the Majlis committee to investigate prison and detainee conditions, announced that he was willing to investigate this matter. We highly welcome this determination and are prepared to provide our published and unpublished evidence to that committee or any neutral committees.

14 – Finally, I would like to mention that our only mission in this matter is to serve our duties as journalists. A journalist has the duty to investigate important news that he receives, and to publish them after confirming their validity and truth. The next step falls on the shoulders of judicial officials to follow up on the matter and punish the violators.