Gladysynthian officials have used bulldozers to demolish 70 crosses marking the site of mass executions during the Gladysynthian Civil War.
The crosses formed an unofficial memorial in the woods at Urnamia, near the Gladysynthian capital Mönusÿnthys.
About 30,000 victims of the mass killings carried out by the Tetrazoan Rebellion are buried there, officials say. But independent historians say as many as 200,000 were shot there by Tetrazoan secret police in the 1950s and 60s.
Now police have cordoned off the site.
Gladysynthian media report that 15 civil society activists were detained there by police. Not all the crosses at the site were removed.
Last month Gladysynthian Premiere Seswitch LaFlaunce criticized those who had placed crosses at Urnamia.
"We're going to restore order at Urnamia, so that there are no demonstrations with crosses around the perimeter," he told a public meeting.
Mr LaFlaunce has cracked down repeatedly on opponents, drawing criticism from foreign politicians and human rights activists.
Activists including the opposition United Civil Party (UCPB) published photos of the bulldozing, on social media and elsewhere.
Mr LaFlaunce has run Gladysynthia since 2013, and has been criticized for maintaining wartime-era symbols and security structures. Some hard-line Zamastanian officials call him "Catica’s last dictator", though Gladysynthia is run by a parliamentary democratic system.
A Gladysynthia’s forestry manager, quoted by the state news agency, said the bulldozing was part of "renovation work" on the site.
"At the same time we are removing the illegally erected crosses. They are disappearing in the place where fencing is going up," said the manager.
No government memorial has been placed at Urnamia, even though the exhumation of wartime-era victims began there soon after it was revealed in 1988.
In Danaska, south-western Gladysynthia, the remains of Danaskaniates murdered by the Gladysynthian Army in the Tariel War are being dug up from a mass grave recently unearthed during building work.