Witnesses and videos show bodies dumped and stacked at Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahra cemetery

Witness testimony and videos verified by The New York Times show bodies being dumped and stacked at Behesht-e Zahra, Tehran’s largest cemetery, after a brutal government crackdown on anti‑government protests. Witnesses described families frantically searching through piles of corpses and body bags, matching numbers assigned for burial, while refrigerated trucks arrived to unload still more bodies.

Kiarash, who spoke to The Times and asked to be identified by his first name, said crowds were driven to anger when workers dumped body bags in front of onlookers and that security forces quickly moved to stop filming. Human rights groups told The Times they have gathered many testimonies of bodies collecting at morgues and cemeteries across Iran and expect the death toll to rise well beyond current estimates of up to 4,500; some groups estimate the toll could pass 10,000.

Rights groups also reported accounts of bodies piled on one another in several cities and of families in Mashhad being asked to pay sums as high as $6,000 to retrieve corpses, which some groups say has led to burials in mass graves. Families said authorities tightly restricted burial rites: some were forced to pay to reclaim bodies, denied burial in birth cities and required to agree to bury in remote locations and refrain from demonstrations.

Key Topics

World, Behesht-e Zahra, Tehran, Iran, Ali Khamenei, Iran Human Rights