Tomb of Iran’s greatest contemporary poet desecrated

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Apr. 08 – “Unknown assailants” desecrated the tomb of Iran’s renowned and most popular contemporary poet.
Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Apr. 08 – “Unknown assailants” desecrated the tomb of Iran’s renowned and most popular contemporary poet.

Ahmad Shamlou was admired for his marvellous poems since the time of the Shah.

State-run news agencies reported that “unknown assailants” had broken the stone on Shamlou’s tomb and that chunks of the stone were missing.

Many of Shamlou’s poems criticised the Shah’s dictatorship with particular fervour, making him a hit in the eyes of Iranians.

A number of his poems passionately defended Iranian dissidents, some of whom were executed in the Shah’s prisons.

Shamlou’s popularity continued after the 1979 Islamic revolution as he resisted pressures by Iran’s ayatollahs to stop writing about the persecution of dissidents and corruption by the officialdom.

He died in his home on July 23, 2000 at the age of 74.