In a move that has drawn international condemnation and reignited painful memories of Iran’s turbulent modern history, authorities in Tehran have begun paving over Lot 41—a notorious mass grave in the city’s largest cemetery, Behesht-e Zahra. The site, long believed to hold the remains of thousands of people executed in the chaotic years following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, is being transformed into a parking lot, likely entombing the victims beneath asphalt.
Satellite images captured by Planet Labs PBC and reviewed by multiple news outlets, including ABC and The Tribune, show the unmistakable signs of construction. As of August 18, 2025, about half of Lot 41 was freshly paved, with trucks, piles of asphalt, and other construction materials scattered across the area. The work, which began in earnest at the start of August, has continued steadily, with officials confirming in early September that the project is moving forward.
For decades, Lot 41 has been a desert-like patch of sand and sparse trees in southern Tehran, marked by its grim history. It was here, amidst the turmoil that followed the Islamic Revolution, that the new theocratic regime buried thousands of its opponents—many executed at gunpoint or by hanging after summary trials. The site, often referred to by officials as the "scorched section," has been under constant surveillance, with cameras monitoring for any sign of dissent or remembrance. Grave markers have been vandalized or overturned, and trees in the area were deliberately dried out, according to accounts from researchers and family members.
Iranian officials have not shied away from acknowledging the construction, but they have offered little detail about those buried beneath the soon-to-be parking lot. Tehran’s deputy mayor, Davood Goudarzi, explained the rationale to journalists in footage broadcast on state television: "In this place, hypocrites of the early days of the revolution were buried and it has remained without change for years. We proposed that the authorities reorganize the space. Since we needed a parking lot, the permission for the preparation of the space was received. The job is ongoing in a precise and smart way."
The parking lot, officials say, is intended to serve visitors to a neighboring section of Behesht-e Zahra, where authorities plan to bury victims of the Iran-Israel war that erupted in June 2025. That conflict, marked by a major Israeli airstrike campaign, resulted in the deaths of more than 1,060 people, according to government figures, with some activist groups claiming the toll exceeded 1,190.
Yet the decision to repurpose Lot 41 has sparked outrage among human rights advocates, legal experts, and families of the dead. Many see it as the latest and most egregious attempt by the Iranian state to erase the evidence of past atrocities and thwart any effort at historical reckoning. In 2024, a United Nations special rapporteur described Iran’s ongoing destruction of graveyards as a deliberate effort to "conceal or erase data that could serve as potential evidence to avoid legal accountability."
Shahin Nasiri, a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam who has extensively researched the history of Lot 41, told The Tribune, "Most of the graves and gravestones of dissidents were desecrated, and the trees in the section were deliberately dried out. The decision to convert this section into a parking lot fits into this broader pattern and represents the final phase of the destruction process." Nasiri estimates that between 5,000 and 7,000 people—communists, monarchists, militants, and others deemed "religious outlaws" by the post-revolutionary regime—may be buried in Lot 41. "Many survivors and family members of the victims are still searching for the graves of their loved ones. They seek justice and aim to hold the perpetrators accountable. The deliberate destruction of these burial sites adds an additional obstacle to efforts of truth-finding and the pursuit of historical justice," Nasiri added.
Iranian law does allow for the repurposing of cemetery land after more than 30 years, but only if the families of the deceased agree to the change. In the case of Lot 41, there is no evidence that such consent was sought or obtained. Mohsen Borhani, a prominent human rights lawyer in Iran, publicly criticized the move in an interview with the reformist newspaper Shargh, declaring: "The piece was not only for executed and political people. Ordinary people were buried there, too." He added that paving over the graveyard was "neither moral nor legal."
This is not the first time Iranian authorities have targeted burial sites linked to the regime’s violent past. Over the years, graveyards containing the remains of those killed in the 1988 mass executions—when thousands of political prisoners were put to death—have also been destroyed or desecrated, often without removing the bones. Cemeteries belonging to the Baha'i religious minority, as well as those holding protesters killed during the 2009 Green Movement and the 2022 Mahsa Amini demonstrations, have similarly been vandalized or razed. As Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, put it, "Impunity for atrocities and crimes against humanity has been building for decades in the Islamic Republic. There is a direct line between the massacres of the 1980s, the gunning down of demonstrators in 2009, and the mass killings of protesters in 2019 and 2022."
Behesht-e Zahra, or the "Paradise of Zahra," has been Tehran’s main burial ground since it opened in 1970 on what was then the rural outskirts of the capital. The cemetery has grown to become the final resting place for some of Iran’s most famous citizens, as well as countless ordinary people. It was also the first place Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini visited upon his return from exile in 1979, paying tribute to those killed in the revolution before assuming leadership of the new Islamic Republic. After his death in 1989, a grand mausoleum was built for Khomeini, connected to the cemetery grounds.
As the city expanded and the cemetery grew, Lot 41 became surrounded by new burial plots, but its reputation as a site of state-sanctioned violence and secrecy only deepened. For years, families of the victims have struggled to locate the graves of their loved ones, often facing harassment or surveillance when they tried to commemorate them. The transformation of Lot 41 into a parking lot, many say, represents not just an act of physical erasure, but a final insult to the memory of those lost and to the pursuit of truth itself.
The controversy over Lot 41 is unlikely to fade soon. As construction vehicles continue their work and asphalt covers the traces of the past, the debate over memory, justice, and accountability in Iran remains as heated as ever.
