Free Republic

One year ago Sunday, a single, violent death captivated the world. 27-year-old Neda Agha Soltan was shot during an anti-government protest in Tehran on June 20, 2009 – her death caught on camera and broadcast around the world on YouTube. Neda quickly become a symbol of the protest movement in Iran. But one year later, the movement is suffering under the weight of a brutal crackdown. We recently returned from a rare visit inside Iran -- the first by American television reporters since the protests. Though the government banned us from any contact with opposition leaders, we met them in...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is using the Gaza flotilla episode to distract attention from the anniversary of his rigged reelection -- and from a fourth round of U.N. sanctions passed Wednesday to rein in Tehran's nuclear program. But the Iranian leader's denunciations of the deaths in the botched Israeli raid can't erase images of scores of dead Iranian civilians mowed down as they peacefully protested election fraud after the June 12, 2009, ballot. Those images have been preserved for posterity on YouTube. None is more iconic than that of Neda Agha-Soltan, the beautiful young music student whose death from a...

Nearly a year ago, the final seconds of Neda Agha Soltan’s life flashed across computer screens worldwide. Peacefully protesting the controversial Iranian presidential elections of last year, 26-year old Neda was shot in the heart by a member of the para-governmental Basij militia. Her dying moments were captured on video by cell phones, and then circulated worldwide via YouTube and other websites. Neda, whose name means “divine voice” in Iranian, has become a symbol of rebellion in Iran—but who was this girl? Very little is known about her. But now, For Neda, a moving new HBO documentary by acclaimed filmmaker...

Iranian photojournalist Caspian Makan, the fiancé of Neda Agha Soltan, the icon of the Iranian protest movement who was murdered during a demonstration in Teheran on June 20, 2009, met on Monday with President Shimon Peres. Makan, who today lives as a political refugee in Canada, spent time in Teheran’s notorious Evin prison, where he and other members of the protest movement were taken. He was released on bail after his family put up their house as collateral. He subsequently fled to freedom, traveling via Turkey to the West. Although Makan had requested the meeting with Peres, the president was...

Americans know far more about Michael Jackson than they do the history of Iran and its relationship to the United States. Most of what America knows is wrong, having been subjected to pertinacious propaganda in Ayers’ based public education. Neda was the beautiful young Iranian woman who was gunned down in the streets of Tehran for the crime of showing up. She showed up to take a stand for freedom and took a bullet in the neck for her aspirations. A relative in the United States had cautioned Neda not to attend any demonstrations, telling her “They’re killing people.” To...

THE young woman killed during the June election protests in Tehran was an agent for the United States and Britain who faked her own death, says a documentary made by Iran state television. Neda Agha Soltan, 27, became a symbol of Iranian democratic resistance when her death was filmed on a mobile phone and then posted on YouTube, where it was watched by millions of people. It was then broadcast around the world by news organisations. Yet a documentary shown on Iranian state TV claims she wasn’t dying, but had simply poured blood on her face from a hidden bottle,...

Two weeks ago, Time magazine once again proved to have little appreciation for the US Constitution when it announced that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was its “person of the year 2009.” He deserved this honor, the magazine’s editors said, because he “has dramatically expanded” the Fed “and reinvented it.” In other words, because he used the economic crisis as an excuse to radically increase the size of government. Today, the British editors of the Times of London proved to have a much better understanding of what truly matters: Neda Soltan was not political. She did not vote in the...

Must see fresh videos of Iraninan Revolution in progress. http://www.youtube.com/user/2009IranRevolution

Iran's Courageous Women Fight On In regard to your Dec. 22 editorial "The Peoples' Revolt in Iran": It has been highly disturbing over the past six months to see so many women demonstrating in the streets of Iran. Of course, all of the demonstrators are not women—many men were also on the streets. It's just that I never remember seeing so many women take the lead in demonstrations, especially at the risk of their lives. Meanwhile, the silence from the free world has been deafening. President Barack Obama, instead of embracing the protesters, has stood by hoping that the Iranian...

December 26, 2009 Iranian Student Protester Neda Soltan Is Times Person of the Year Neda Soltan did not vote in her country's election, but was appalled by the rigging of the result. Since she was shot in a democracy protest, her face has become an opposition symbol Neda Soltan was not political. She did not vote in the Iranian presidential election on June 12. The young student was appalled, however, by the way that the regime shamelessly rigged the result and reinstalled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ignoring the pleas of her family, she went with her music teacher eight days later to...

At the height of the protests following Iran's controversial presidential election this summer, a young woman named Neda Agha Soltan was shot and killed on the streets of Tehran. Her death -- filmed on a camera phone, then uploaded to the Web -- quickly became an international outrage, and Soltan became the face of a powerful movement that threatened the hard-line government's hold on power. In A Death in Tehran, FRONTLINE revisits the events of last summer, shedding new light on Neda's life and death and the movement she helped inspire. In response to the international outcry over Neda's death...

At the height of the protests following Iran’s controversial presidential election this summer, a young woman named Neda Agha Soltan was shot and killed on the streets of Tehran. Her death -- filmed on a cameraphone, then uploaded to the web -- quickly became an international outrage, and Agha Soltan became the face of a powerful movement that threatened the hard-line government’s hold on power. With the help of a unique network of correspondents in and out of the country, FRONTLINE investigates the life and death of the woman whose image remains a potent symbol for those who want to...

The Queen's College is delighted to announce that, thanks to two generous gifts, it has been able to establish a graduate scholarship in Philosophy in memory of Neda Agha-Soltan, the 27-year-old Iranian philosophy student who was killed in Tehran on 20 June during the protests over the outcome of the 2009 Iranian presidential election. Commenting on the scholarship, the Provost, Professor Paul Madden, said, 'Oxford is increasingly losing out to its competitors in the race to recruit top graduate students. Donations such as those that have enabled us to create the Neda Agha-Soltan Scholarship are absolutely vital for us to...

The Nobel Committee's cluelessness is magnified when you compare their winner, Obama, to someone like Neda. Obama is unable to recognize Iran as a despotic regime that kills its own people for speaking out. Neda recognized it as exactly that. Obama did nothing about it. Neda paid with her life. Maybe if Obama had done something to stop Iran from crushing the protests, he would have been deserving of the prize. And Neda would still be alive.

The man accused of killing Neda Soltan has been identified as Abbas Kargar Javid, a pro-government militiaman, after photographs of the Basiji’s ID cards appeared on the internet. The identification challenges the Iranian regime’s claim that foreign agents shot the young woman, who became a global symbol of resistance to the Government of President Ahmadinejad. One picture appears on Mr Javid’s Basij identification card, which was taken off him by the crowd that stopped him briefly when he fled the murder scene during a massive demonstration against electoral fraud on June 20. Photographs of that card and another that was...

TEHRAN__ In line with the Shia tradition of paying respects to the dead, tens of thousands of Iranians went to Behesht Zahra cemetery on Thursday to mourn the death of Neda Agha Soltan – an iconic victim of post-election violence in Iran. Thursday marked the 40th day following the killing of the 27-year-old woman by a gunshot wound to the chest, an event that was captured on video and widely distributed via the Internet. Neda quickly transformed into a symbol of the struggle of the Iranian nation for freedom. Defeated presidential candidates Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi also attended...

TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian police fired tear gas and beat anti-government protesters with batons to disperse thousands attending a memorial at the graveside of a woman whose killing made her an icon of the opposition movement.

Baton-wielding Iranian riot police arrested mourners and drove away opposition leaders as they tried to stage a ceremony in a Tehran cemetery to commemorate protesters killed in anti-government demonstrations last month. Ignoring Islamic customs and traditions, the security forces beat and detained many of the 2000-odd people who came to mark the end of the 40-day mourning period at the grave of Neda Soltan, the young student who has become an icon of the opposition movement. When Mir Hossein Mousavi, the movement’s leader, arrived at the Behesht-e Zahra cemetery on the baking plains south of the capital, he was mobbed...

BS"D The sensationalist "Neda" video, which has been used to promote the idea that there is actually an organized revolution in Iran against the Communist ruling power (as if such a thing could be organized, with Communist cadre everywhere to prevent it), was faked. The video was intended for emotional impact, to convince gullible Westerners that the phony Iranian "democracy" movement is genuine. It is a typical Communist deception tactic to further their global objective. Click the article link to read about it.

In 1979, the return to Iran of an exiled cleric marked the start of the Islamic Republic. The death in June of Neda Soltan may herald the long-overdue fall of this moribund regime.

IRANIAN President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has vowed to make changes to his team and "respect" young people when his new government takes office after his disputed re-election. "The structure of government should change, the changes in the government will be considerable," Mr Ahmadinejad said in a televised address to the Iranian people overnight. He said his new government will put "housing, employment and economic reform" on its agenda. "I am against police confrontation with people... We must respect people's tastes especially the youth," said Mr Ahmadinejad, whose opponents say was only re-elected through vote rigging. The hardliner, who enjoys the backing...

[TEHRAN BUREAU] Caspian Makan 37, boyfriend of Neda 27 (Q&A 24 June 2009) Neda was a very happy girl, she was, how can I put it, a simple person, innocent, sweet. She was the sort of girl that when we went somewhere together, everyone liked her, people were drawn to her. She was very kind with people, she had a really sweet personality, very sweet, innocent and open. People were drawn to her. She was not at all into politics nor was she a protestor or part of this ‘green wave’ movement. She didn’t support any of the candidates. She...

Twitter has been criticized as a time-waster -- a way for people to inform their friends about the minutiae of their lives, 140 characters at a time. But in the past month, 140 characters were enough to shine a light on Iranian oppression and elevate Twitter to the level of change agent. Even the government of Iran has been forced to utilize the very tool they attempted to squelch to try to hold on to power.

Washington - The video gave substance to what seemed so far away. We saw the look in her eyes as they went lifeless. We heard the sounds of her friends and family as they begged her to hold on. And she became the personification of the struggle for democracy in a country where voices for freedom are quelled. Her name was Neda Agha-Soltan, and without Twitter we might never have known that she lived in Iran, that she dreamed of a free Iran, and that she died in a divided Iran for her dreams. Neda became the voice of a...

German blogs, Jihad Watch & Atlas Shrugged are discussing the apparent Christian cross seen worn by Neda in an AP photo.

An attempt by Egyptians to march in solidarity with Iranian protesters and to honor Neda-Agha Soltan -- whose death earlier this month made her the icon of Iran's opposition movement -- was halted by security forces in Cairo over the weekend. The Cairo rally was called by democracy activist and opposition leader Ayman Nour and was scheduled to be held in Talaat Harb square in the Egyptian capital's downtown. But dozens of security vehicles surrounded Nour and his fellow protesters upon their arrival at the square. Police arrested four protesters belonging to Nour's party and prevented reporters from covering the...

Why Iran's Changed Forever Reuel Marc Gerecht: Whatever Happens In Tehran, There's No Going Back To Khomeini's Islamic Republic. Who's Who Iran's Election: Key Players A look at the most important figures in Iran's contested presidential election. Stories Candidate Withdraws Iran Fraud Complaint Intensified Crackdown Mutes Iran Protests (Weekly Standard) Reuel Marc Gerecht, a Weekly Standard contributing editor, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The modern Middle East has had numerous "game-changing" moments, when history turned. Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt in 1798, Muhammad Ali's conquest of the Nile Valley in 1805, and the...

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has ordered an inquiry in to the "suspicious" death of Neda Soltan, the woman shot by government militiamen during a protest in Tehran. The President sent a letter to the chief of Iran's judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, requesting a serious investigation to help to identify and prosecute “the elements” behind the killing earlier this month. “Given the many fabricated reports around this heartbreaking incident and the widespread propaganda by the foreign media... it seems there is clear interference by the enemies of Iran who want to misuse the situation politically and tarnish the clean...

Obama said in his latest hem-hawing, foreign policy bloviating, what-the-hell-is-he-talkin’-about press conference that “we need to have a vigorous debate” regarding Iran’s current tyrannical Muslim-based governmental crushing of young people who desire a touch of freedom. We need to debate? “We” who, BHO? I’m guessin’ he is talking about American liberals and conservatives because—from what I can deduce from the YouTube vids—it appears as if the Iranian dissidents aren’t looking for lively banter with the death dealing, lying through coffee-stained teeth religious whack jobs who look like a group of angry, homeless Santa Clauses on crack. A debate, Mr. O?...

Dear Ali Khamenei, You may not have heard of me, but your daughter knows me well. For eight years, I studied with Boshra at the Refah school in Tehran. The Refah School is where Ayatollah Khomeini resided during the Islamic Revolution. On its roof, leaders from the Shah's regime were executed. Sound familiar? Boshra and I played volleyball together. I remember how she always arrived at school in a white Toyota with three escorts. And I remember how favorably the teachers treated her.(snip) Neda Soltan, the young innocent girl who was killed on Karegar Avenue, was the same age as...

It is a bad sign when the Iranian government would rather execute it's people, than recount all of the votes to keep the peace. It makes a person think that the Iranian government has something to hide.

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) -- The United States may have been behind the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan, the 26-year-old Iranian woman whose fatal videotaped shooting Saturday made her a symbol of opposition to the June 12 presidential election results, the country's ambassador to Mexico said Thursday. "This death of Neda is very suspicious," Ambassador Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri said. "My question is, how is it that this Miss Neda is shot from behind, got shot in front of several cameras, and is shot in an area where no significant demonstration was behind held?" He suggested that the CIA or another intelligence...

It isn't exactly like dancing on Neda's grave, but it's close enough to make decent people uncomfortable...At a news conference Tuesday, President Barack Obama condemned the "threats, beatings and imprisonments of the last few days," but stopped short of criticizing the stolen election...

For previous generations, the question: “Where were you when Kennedy was shot” has served as a conversation starter as well as a catalyst for exploration of a shared history. It would seem that the quintessential question will soon be: “where were you when you found out Michael Jackson was dead?”? For the record, I was at the gym. Credulous, I trusted that the Jackson story would get a few minutes of coverage before Bret Baier returned. My jejune confidence that Charles Krauthammer would momentarily be providing commentary about actual news was hastily crushed. Abstrusely, Fox News brought Shepard Smith in...

The imprisoned-in-their-own-country Iranians, who know they'll likely get bludgeoned bloody, and might even get killed, were nevertheless in the streets by the tens-of-thousands; in peaceful but unmistakable protest making sure the powers that be understood their displeasure. Obama (like Ahmedinejad, an illegal usurper to a seat he by law cannot hold) in 6 months takes America from a nation of laws guided by a Constitution to a banana republic dictatorship (rapidly headed for third-world junk bond status) with Czars, unelected and answering to nobody but His Highness, to run everything from car companies and banks to when and where I...

LONDON (Reuters) - One person captured on Internet videos helping "Neda," the young Iranian woman killed last week who has become an icon of the protests, was identified by a British newspaper on Friday as a doctor who has since fled Iran. "I felt she was trying to ask a question, 'Why?'," Dr. Arash Hejazi told the Times in an interview as he recalled her final moments lying in a street with blood pouring from her body. "She was just a person in the street who was against the injustice going on in her country, and for that she was...

More Disgusting than Forced Confessions [Michael Rubin] Word from Iran is that the authorities have forced Neda's father to appear on state television and say that the protestors, and not the regime, killed her.

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iran said the gunman who killed Neda Agha-Soltan may have mistaken her for the sister of an Iranian "terrorist," the Islamic Republic News Agency reported Wednesday. Iran blamed the death of the woman known to the world simply as Neda squarely on "those groups who want to create division in the nation," saying they planned the woman's killing "to accuse the Islamic republic of ruthlessly dealing with the opposition," according to IRNA, Iran's state-run news agency. The report said the investigation into her death is ongoing, "but according to the evidence so far, it could be...

Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a member of the clerical leadership, used the platform of Friday prayers at Tehran University to level charges that the regimes opponents were "rioting" in defiance of God's will. Those arrested should be punished harshly, he said, while their leaders could face the death penalty as enemies of the Islamic Republic. Iran's regime strengthened its stance in the absence of mass demonstrations, which have come to an end after a brutal police and militia response led to the deaths of dozens of people. Tehran's defiance was challenged by President Barack Obama on Friday and by G8 foreign...

Tweets from an Iranian http://twitter.com/ThinkIran (1) January 31, 2006 George W. Bush State Of The Union “Tonight, let me speak directly to the citizens of Iran: (2) America respects you, and we respect your country. We respect your right to choose your own future and win... 3) your own freedom. And our nation hopes one day to be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran.”

TEHRAN, Iran — Defying an official ban, hundreds of people held a graveside tribute Thursday for the woman who's become a symbol of the Iranian opposition after she was killed while protesting the country's disputed election. Witnesses said the crowd gathered around 5 p.m. Thursday at the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery, an hour's drive south of Tehran, for a memorial service for Neda Agha-Soltan, the 26-year-old woman who allegedly was shot dead by a member of the pro-government Basij militia during a massive protest in the capital on June 20. "Her grave was covered with white and red roses," said a young...

This is an outstanding video interview of the man who tried to save Neda. It's about 19 minutes long but take the time to watch it.....one of the more shocking things to come out of it was that the crowd caught the gunman, and after taking his ID and picture let him go: [video at site] Meanwhile Threatswatch posted on the massacre in Baharestan Square yesterday by the Basij thugs, as told by a Iranian blogger: Bus loads of protesters were stopped and unloaded from their buses by "black-clad police" and literally herded. When the massing was sufficient, as the...

Don’t be daunted by the length. Rarely have 19 minutes passed so quickly, although if you’re pressed for time, the first eight or so are the way to go. At six minutes in, he drops a bombshell I haven’t seen reported anywhere else: The crowd actually caught the Basij bastard who shot her — he insisted he didn’t shoot to kill — and took his ID card and photos of him before reluctantly letting him go. I can only assume they didn’t drag him into an alley and beat his head in for fear of reprisals if they were spotted,...

The doctor who tried to save an Iranian protester as she bled to death on a street in Tehran has told the BBC of her final moments. Dr Arash Hejazi, who is studying at a university in the south of England, said he ran to Neda Agha-Soltan's aid after seeing she had been shot in the chest. Despite his attempts to stop the bleeding she died in less than a minute, he said. Dr Hejazi says he posted the video of Ms Soltan's death on the internet and images of her have become a rallying point for Iranian opposition supporters...

It took the tragic killing of Neda Soltan in Iran for the world to realize that the lives - and deaths - of women are at the center of the struggle for human rights against religious extremism. The astounding protests taking place in Iran over the past week, since the fraudulent victory of Islamic extremist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over Mir Hossein Mousavi, is really a story about women. According to an article in last weekend's Yediot Aharonot, written in collaboration with a journalist inside Iran, the protests were started not by supporters of Mousavi but rather by supporters of his wife...

Neda Agha-Soltan was a bystander in the dramatic conflict gripping her country. Today, following her slow death from a bullet in the chest, she is the icon of Iranian reaction to the violent suppression by an entrenched theocracy. Her name means “voice” or “message,” and she has become a dynamic symbol for Iranians seeking openness in government. She has also altered international reaction, even moving the White House off its mark. The video of her last frightful two minutes was seen around the world within moments of her passing. The ubiquity of the Internet disseminating the powerful images of Neda’s...

The anti-government protests in Iran following the government's rigged elections are doubtless a little more than the "robust debate" among Iranians that President Barack Obama welcomed during the election. Some of the debaters have been shot dead. Others have been hustled off to jail. I wonder whether this is an eye-opener for our novice president. Conservatives have objected to his Laodicean calm in the first days of the bloodshed. He fastidiously refused to take sides. Only by the weekend did he come to his wits and call "on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its...

Killed by Government Forces: The government has admitted to at least 27 fatalities in Tehran but the true numbers are most probably much higher. The Campaign has been able to identify only the names of four persons killed in Tehran during recent protests because of the extreme restrictions imposed by the government. There are also reports of fatalities in other cities but the Campaign has not been able to collect any reliable information. 1) Neda Aghasoltan, student, was murdered at the demonstration in Tehran on 20 June 2009 2) Naser Amirnejad, Aerospace PhD student, was murdered during the attack on...

Being Reported on TV - not yet online.

As people all over the world watched in horror the death of the young Iraninan woman, Neda Soltan, “The Stoning of Soraya M." is a film which could not be released at a more perfect time. Based on a true story and set in 1986, when Soraya refuses to divorce her husband after he falls in love with a 14-year old girl, he schemes with a local mullah to accuse Soraya of cheating on him. While there is no proof of her husband's accusation, Soraya is sentenced to death by stoning.