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What happened in Behesht-e Zahra cemetery on July 13, 14, and 15, 2009?

I am a university student. One of my family members works in Behesht Zahra cemetery. We are of low economic class, and all of us are pro-Ahmadinejad (whether you like it or not!) But we do acknowledge that there was fraud in the election! We are pro Ahmadinejad's government because they gave all Behesht-e Zahra employees (especially us) housing. I believe that there is a power other than Ahmadinejad committing all these crimes, and if he [Ahmadinejad] knew about these crimes, he would definitely stand against them. Maybe for some reason he can't really show that he is against these crimes-let's not go there for now.

My mother who has a long history of working in Behesht-e Zahra and who works night shift at its department of services told us they were informed that on 13th, 14th and 15th of July that some bodies killed in accidents will be brought in to be buried at night! We were all surprised and I sensed something was fishy about this.

I always asked my mother about the bodies of those who had died in the protests, but she, who wanted to protect my feelings, usually didn't talk about them and urged me to do my studies instead. But this time, these [the burials] were going to happen during the night shift; although there were other times when they buried during night shifts, like accidents where there were delays and they needed more time. But this time it was three nights in a row! I had planned to drop my mother off but she said that she was being picked up.

She came back home at six in the morning and I asked her what was going on. She didn't answer, but I could see sadness and anxiety in her face. I asked her again. She told me to go to sleep! She had the day off the next morning and she was doing some house chores. I saw her hands, and there were some stamp ink on them; like she had stamped her fingerprint somewhere. I asked her, "Don't you want to tell me what had happened? Were they really in an accident?" She told me to be quiet, and that she did not feel well. I didn't insist.

At 12:00am they called her cell phone and then came to pick her up again. This time she came back at 7:00am looking very sad and tired. She went to bed. At 9:00am I heard her crying. I got up and told her, "Either you tell me right now what is going on, or I'm going to Behesht-e Zahra to find out myself." She said it was nothing. I said, "So, I'll just call Aunt Mahin (her colleague) and ask her." My mom told me that Aunt Mahin didn't know about it. I should say that my mother has a hard job and is very strong because of it, but I had never seen her cry for what she had seen at work; even though she is very kind-hearted.

Then I insisted again that she tell me what's going on. She made me swear on my father's grave not to repeat what she was about to tell me. I accepted. She brought the Holy Book Quran and asked me to wash up and put my hand on it and swear that I will never repeat the news. (I was very surprised! It seemed very important for her to keep all this so "hush hush." She had never asked me to swear like that) She said that she didn't want me to repeat this mostly for my own safety.

Anyway, I swore like she wanted, and then she started. She said:

"Two nights ago (July 13th) when I entered the department, I saw about 30 frozen bodies laying there to be defrosted. There were many bearded men there and they took me and my colleagues to a room. In the room there was an elderly man with a stamp mark on his forehead. The man told us that for a few nights we had to bury some bodies belonging to enemies. He said that they are anti-revolutionary and that they had attacked them and killed many of their soldiers. They explained that they had brought their bodies into the country for identification, and these bodies are to be buried far from the eyes of spies and media.

He said if we speak of this to anyone, our lives and our families' lives would be in grave danger. Then he asked us to name our family members one by one and he wrote all of them down. At the end they took our fingerprints, and again reminded us not to forget what he had said. Then they took us back to our posts. The bodies were mostly male, and the male workers were also more than us. There was only a few of us in the women's section. That night they gave us five bodies of women and girls, completely frozen, but I think in the men's section there were over 20 bodies.

Director of Behesht-e Zahra was also there, and he told us that even if we don't get to fully wash and bury all five bodies, we have to finish up by 5:00 am, before sunrise. We started to work. There was frozen blood on the faces of the women, and we could see large injuries on their faces. Three of them were middle-aged women and two of them were about 20-30 years old. One of the younger one's head was completely blown up. The ice wouldn't melt that easily and they were hard like wood.
We buried them like that."

My mother didn't want to go on about the things that she had seen on July 14th, but I insisted again.

She continued:

"Tonight we went there again, and the number of the bodies were four times more! More than 100! In the women's section, they gave us 23 bodies with no identity. The number of those bearded people (plain clothes) was also three or four times more than last night. There were guards at the gates of Behesht-e Zahra and all entries where controlled. We started to work. But we reported that we could not finish before 5:00 am. Then that elderly guy with the stamp on his forehead entered, and we protested because no men were allowed in the women's section. He told us that these women were all prostitutes, murderers, and traitors of their country. He told us to bring some reinforcement from the men's section! But there were also many bodies in the men's section. Anyway, three of the men workers entered (for the first time) into the women's section and started helping us. What disgusted me the most was the scene of the frozen bodies of the girls, who not only had broken jaws, but also had blood clots around their genital parts. (when Karoubi revealed sexual abuses I was very shocked, because we had guessed that this had happened to them while they were detained.) Tonight the bodies were not that frozen, but we could see the markings that the ice had made on them. Among them were girls under 20 years old. We worked really fast and by the help of those men we were able to finish 14 of them by 4:00 am. Then the men shouted at us and told us to bury the others without washing and cottoning them. And we did just that. By 5:00am, 17 bodies were done. They told us to just put some cloth around the last six bodies, and then give them to burial services, but their boss said that it was already too late and there was little time left to sunrise, and the rest had to be done the next night."

There were tears in my mother's eyes. She said that she had to go tomorrow as well, and that would be the last night. My mother had heard from her colleagues that these bodies were all from the recent protests against the election. On July 15th, my mother went to Behesht-e Zahra again, and I couldn't sleep. I waited up for her. She came back around 7:00am. I ran to her and held her hands. She sat down and told me not to repeat the things she has told me. She said that night they buried the bodies without preparing them, and they also buried the rest of the bodies from the nights before. Some weeks later, my mother heard that they hadn't taken all the bodies to Behesht-e Zahra. They had taken some to unknown locations. One of the employees of the burial services who is our friend said that they were told to leave some graves empty, and if anyone brought their deceased there to bury, to use those empty graves. There is no need for me to say the grave numbers, because this was announced on BBC.

I should also add that in a few days they are supposed to talk to the director of Behesht Zahra about why he has used numbers for graves instead of names. I am giving out this information, even though I swore I wouldn't. I don't care what happens. Even though they were pro-Mousavi and I oppose them, they were still my fellow citizens, and my life is not more valuable than theirs.

Source: Mina Akbari (WordPress), 25 Aug 2009