Every year relatives and friends of those executed during the Islamic regime of Iran’s mass executions of the summer of 1988 come together in Khavaran cemetery in the southeastern part of Tehran to commemorate their beloved. To us Khavaran is called the “Flower Garden,” but to the regime, which has dumped the bodies of thousands of Marxists, leftists, “anti-revolutionaries” and “non-believers,” it is the ‘place of the damned.’ Thousands were executed and dumped in mass graves after a brief informal questioning by three men who became known as the ‘Death Commission.’

On August 29, the 20 anniversary of the slaughter, the Islamic regime of Iran’s security forces blocked access to Khavaran, attacked the crowd, injuring some and arresting others. Nonetheless, the crowd filled Khavaran road leading to the cemetery with flowers and went on to commemorate their loved ones in Section 33 of Beheshte Zahra cemetery where those executed by the monarchy have been buried.

Khavaran is a reminder of the crimes against humanity of the Islamic regime as well as the resolve of the people of Iran in getting rid of this regime.