Martyr of Iran's Struggle for Democatic Justice

---Michael Weissenstein and Anna Johnson.

CAIRO (AP) — She lies in the Tehran street with her headscarf half-off, blood pooling around her jeans and white sneakers.

"Don't be afraid, Neda dear, don't be afraid," a white-haired man says desperately in Persian. Another man presses on her chest, trying to keep her alive.

Scarlet blood gushes from her nose and mouth and courses across her pale face. Men and women scream in horror as they realize she is dead or dying.



The death of the woman identified as Neda Agha Soltan was captured on amateur videos and spread around the world in less than 48 hours on YouTube, Facebook, blogs and Twitter. It turned the woman described as a 27-year-old music student into an instant icon of the clash between Iran's cleric-led government and the self-described "green wave" movement that claims hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole his June 12 re-election through fraud.

The seconds-long videos also thwarted government attempts to suppress details surrounding election protests. Rules imposed last week barred independent media from street reporting and turned the people of Iran into an essential source of information on the unrest, documenting it with camera phones and e-mailing the images out to the world.




Caspian Makan, who identified himself as Soltan's boyfriend, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Monday that she was not a part of any of the groups vying for power.

"She only ever said that she wanted one thing, she wanted democracy and freedom for the people of Iran," Makan told a reporter in the Los Angeles bureau of the AP.

Makan, a 37-year-old photojournalist in Tehran, said he met Soltan several months ago on a trip outside the country, and provided photographs of himself with a woman he identified as Soltan. It was impossible to verify his statements independently because of reporting strictures.

He said he had asked her not to go out for fear she would be arrested or shot.

"But she said that our attendance would be worthwhile even if a bullet hits my heart," he said. "Unfortunately, that is how she died, a bullet hit her heart and her lung, and maybe 5 or 6 minutes later, she died."

At least two recordings of Soltan's death, shot from different angles by what appear to camera phones, began appearing widely online Saturday, the day thousands of protesters defied an order from Iran's supreme leader and marched to demand a new election. Waiting police and pro-government militia launched baton charges, tear gas and water cannons.




One of the amateur videos of Soltan is 40 seconds long, the other only 14. The person who posted the longer one says it was taken on Workers' Avenue in central Tehran.

Protesters outside Iran have made posters of Soltan's bloodied face. Poems, tributes and angry denunciations of Iran's government have multiplied online. In some, she is compared to the lone man standing with shopping bags in his hands in front of a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square.

Videos of Soltan's death have been circulating inside Iran despite official blocking of Web sites including Facebook and jamming of satellite television signals. People have used anti-filtering software to circumvent the controls. Some Iranians have uploaded the footage to their cell phones and used Bluetooth technology to share it.

The bloody imagery could have an important impact on public opinion inside Iran, where the idea of martyrdom resonates deeply among a populace steeped in the stories and imagery of Shiite Islam, a faith founded on the idea of self-sacrifice in the cause of justice.

"She was a real Iranian because she didn't believe that we always have to fight and quarrel and be violent and have death," Makan said. "Iranians, in the past and today, believe that there's only one thing they must fight and that's ignorance."

The deaths of protesters during the 1979 Islamic Revolution fueled a 40-day cycle of mourning marches, and shootings of mourners, that contributed to the overthrow of the U.S.-backed dictator, Shah Reza Pahlavi.

Police officials said Saturday that they had ordered officers to restrain their use of force, promising deadlier measures only if protesters returned to the streets. The government media still reported seven deaths of protesters they accused of instigating violence and rioting. It was not clear if Soltan was counted among them.



Acquaintances said she had been shot by a plainclothes member of the pro-government Basij militia, a fiercely loyal cadre that answers to the elite Revolutionary Guard and ultimately to the supreme leader. The Basij have been heavily deployed against supporters of opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and blamed by protesters for much of the worst violence against them.

Persian-language postings on blogs and Twitter feeds used by supporters of the opposition called for a rally Monday at Haft-e-tir Square Tehran in memory of Neda and other "martyrs." About 200 gathered there and were quickly dispersed by riot police firing tear gas and live ammunition, quashing the demonstration and barring any further gathering of people, even in pairs, at the normally busy intersection.

Makan said the Basij denied Soltan a formal funeral and she was hastily buried.

Still, Makan said, "I think the same way that she said each individual can make an impact ... it looks like she had a magical effect on many people in Iran and in other countries."

Associated Press writer Shaya Tayefe Mohajer contributed to this report from Los Angeles. Johnson reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Source: The Associated Press