Overview

• Planet Labs satellite images from August 18 show roughly half of Lot 41 newly paved with construction materials and trucks still on site.
• Tehran deputy mayor Davood Goudarzi and cemetery overseer Mohammad Javad Tajik publicly acknowledged the project, describing it as a reorganization to provide parking for visitors to a neighboring war-dead section.
• Researchers estimate Lot 41 holds about 5,000 to 7,000 burial sites of people executed in the years after the 1979 revolution, in an area long monitored and repeatedly vandalized.
• Iranian rules allow cemetery land to be repurposed after 30 years only with family approval, a condition a prominent lawyer, Mohsen Borhani, said was not met as he condemned the move as immoral and illegal.
• It remains unclear whether remains were exhumed before paving, as a 2024 UN special rapporteur warned that destroying grave sites can erase potential evidence and impede accountability.