Mona Mahmoudi's parents were among the first members of Iran's Baha'i religious minority to be executed during the Islamic Republic's decades-long crackdown.
When her mother, the country's first female meteorologist, was arrested along with seven others, her daughter wished she would be executed soon.
"I knew they were going to be executed and I hoped it would happen sooner rather than later," she told The Telegraph at a Baha'i event in London.
"There were so many cases of Baha'is being tortured in prison," she added, "and I didn't want them to be tortured."
Ms Mahmoudi was in east London for an event commemorating the 40th anniversary of a dark chapter in the persecution of Baha'is in Iran: the public execution of ten Baha'i women, including a 17-year-old girl.
The oppression of women in Iran has been endured by the Baha'i community "for many years," Omid Djalili, a British-Iranian comedian who is Baha'i, told The Telegraph.
"The regime is doing its utmost to discourage people from thinking about the persecution of the Baha'is," he said.
Ms Mahmoudi says her family had a "nice and easy life" before the 1979 revolution, which brought the clerical establishment to power.
The family of five, with her meteorologist mother and children's television show father at the helm, traveled to the coast in northern Iran on weekends in the 1970s.
The Islamic Revolution turned the world of the Mahmoudis upside down like a sudden, violent storm.
Their faith, once a cornerstone of their identity, became a target for the new regime's wrath.
Overnight, Ms. Mahmoudi's parents went from respected professionals to persecuted outcasts.
The couple was fired and asked to pay back their years of salary to the new government.
The family found itself in the eye of a political and religious storm. The new establishment banned the Bahá'í Faith and unleashed a flood of persecution.
Thousands were imprisoned, their lands confiscated and their right to higher education revoked.
Shia Islam is the state religion in Iran. The constitution recognizes several minority religions, including Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism, but not the Baha'i Faith.
Since September 2022, when Mahsa Amini died in custody after being arrested for allegedly violating hijab rules and the subsequent nationwide protests, the Iranian government has stepped up its crackdown on the Baha'i community.
Authorities have jailed hundreds of them over the past year and seized or destroyed personal property and their burial sites.
They have been conducting daily searches of the homes of Bahá'í citizens throughout the country.
The escalation of persecution of Baha'is in the wake of the protests follows a familiar pattern of the Iranian regime targeting minority groups during times of broader social and political tensions.
Houshang Mahmoudi, Mona's father, was also a lawyer and member of the National Assembly of Bahá'ís in Iran, charged with overseeing the affairs of the Bahá'í community.
When the nine-member assembly convened on August 21, 1980, their hopes and plans for their beleaguered community were still alive, but soon troops of the newly formed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) descended on them.
In an instant, the entire leadership of the Baha'i community in Iran disappeared - kidnapped and never seen again.
"It was a devastating feeling," says Ms Mahmoudi. "If they were arrested and in jail it would be a different feeling, but they just disappeared."
Ms Mahmoudi believes her father and other members of the assembly were executed immediately, without the knowledge of their families.
Undeterred by the loss, they quickly elected a new national assembly. Among those chosen to lead was Zhinus Mahmoudi, Mona's mother.
But the storm that had swept away the first meeting was far from over. On December 13, 1981, history repeated itself with cruel precision.
As Zhinus and her fellow assembly members gathered, the IRGC struck again. This time there was no mystery, no disappearance into the unknown.
"My mother was elected to the next national assembly," says Ms. Mahmoudi.
"About a year and a half later, when they met, the IRGC raided again and arrested them all."
The members of the meeting were taken to the infamous Evin prison.
For two weeks Mona lived in a state of painful tension. But unlike the uncertainty that shrouded her father's fate, she knew what was going to happen.
All eight captured members, including Zhinus, were executed without trial.
The woman who had once read the heavens for Iran, who had worked to lead her faith community in its darkest hour, was silenced forever.
Ms Mahmoudi was living in California at the time and was informed by telephone about the executions by the US Baha'i National Assembly.
"They had a very useful life and I am very proud of them," she says.
"My parents had a choice: they could leave Iran, but they wanted to stay and serve, even though they knew the price would be their lives."
Ms. Mahmoudi, a retired cybersecurity expert and university professor from Phoenix, has now teamed up with her siblings to create a foundation in honor of their parents, which, among other things, provides education to children in underprivileged countries.
Narges Mohammadi, the imprisoned 2023 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and several other prominent female prisoners condemned the regime last month for the increased "relentless pressure and injustices faced by Baha'is because of their beliefs."
When the participants of the event gathered in London, there was a card on the floor.
"The morning chorus is the outbreak of birdsong," it says. "In Iran, executions are carried out at dawn and just before the morning call to prayer."
