Her name was Neda Salehi Agha Soltan and she was a philosophy student. But the manner of her death has turned her into an instant, global symbol of the Iranian regime’s brutality.
This innocent woman aged 26 was shot in the chest during running battles between opposition protesters and Iranian security forces in Tehran on Saturday. Since then, a grainy, 40-second video showing her final moments, blood streaming from her nose and mouth as a man implores her not to die, has ricocheted around the world on YouTube, blogs and social networking sites.
Miss Soltan, whose first name means “voice”, has become a martyr for freedom, Iran’s equivalent of the student who defied China’s tanks in Tiananmen Square. Pictures of the “Angel of Iran” are being held aloft at demonstrations outside Iranian embassies around the world. Tribute sites have been set up on Facebook, and Twitter has been inundated with heart-rending messages.
“If an innocent girl gets shot halfway across the world, does she make a sound? Yes, the whole world hears her,” says one. “Angels aspire to be Neda. She is our leader, our martyr, our hero,” says another. “Your last breath was our first hope,” says another.
Iran’s state-controlled media has not mentioned Miss Soltan’s death, but she is becoming a potent icon for the opposition inside the Islamic Republic too.
The regime blocked a wake for her in Niloufar mosque in central Tehran yesterday lest it become a focal point for another massive demonstration. It halted a planned vigil for her in Haft-e Tir Square, with mourners walking through the square with candles.
It ensured that Miss Soltan, like other victims of the violence, was buried quickly and privately, surrounded by heavy security, in a cemetery in southern Tehran. “As things stand we are not allowed to hold any gatherings to remember Neda,” her fiancé, Caspian Makan, told BBC Persian TV.
Her poster has begun to appear on walls around the capital. There is even talk of trying to rename the street where she died. “People start weeping every time you mention her name,” one man told The Times.
The authenticity of the video, and the source of the bullet, cannot be verified independently but that hardly matters any more because millions of Iranians and hundreds of millions of others around the world firmly believe the story to be true.
Mr Makan said she had gone into central Tehran with her professor. She got out of their car when it became snarled in traffic and “that’s when she was shot dead”, he told the BBC Persian service.
Some reports say she was shot either by a Basij — an Islamic volunteer militiaman — as he passed on a motorbike, or by two plain-clothed Basiji.
Another account, posted on the internet by someone who claims to have witnessed her death, says that she was standing with her father in Kargar Street when she was shot by a Basij from a nearby roof.
“He had a clear shot at the girl and could not miss her,” the witness wrote. “However, he aimed straight at her heart. I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her. But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim’s chest, and she died in less than two minute ... Please let the world know.”
The video clip, apparently filmed with a mobile telephone, casts no light on who shot Miss Soltan, but it is deeply harrowing. It shows her sinking backwards to the ground as two men rush to her side. Her long black cloak falls open to reveal Western jeans and sneakers below. As the camera zooms in on her face her eyes roll sideways and she loses consciousness.
“Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, Neda dear, don’t be afraid,” says a white-haired man in a striped shirt, presumably her professor. Suddenly blood starts gushing from her nose and mouth. The voices become desperate.
“Neda stay with me, stay with me,” screams the man. Then the footage ends abruptly.
The bloody images could have a big impact on public opinion in Iran, where the idea of martyrdom resonates deeply among a population raised on stories of Shia Islam, a faith founded on the idea of self-sacrifice in the cause of justice.
“This is an image that will be burnt into the Iranian psyche,” one Iranian analyst said last night. “It will haunt the regime forever.”
Thanks to www.timesonline.co.uk
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