Regime cannot stop For Neda

The Iranian regime is resorting to jamming satellite broadcasts in a vain attempt to stop people seeing a new film telling the story of Neda Agha-Soltan, According to the Guardian viewers in Tehran complained of jamming and power cuts last week when the Voice of America Persian TV network broadcast the documentary For Neda, featuring the first film interviews with the family of the 27-year-old.

Unsurprisingly, given the groundswell of feeling in the country the film has rapidly gone viral in Iran in the run-up to next Saturday's anniversary of the disputed elections that triggered the protests. It is available on YouTube so can be seen by anyone with access to the internet.
The film was directed by Antony Thomas and co-produced by Saeed Kamali Dehghan, a former Guardian correspondent in Iran. Kamali Dehghan risked arrest to interview Neda's parents and siblings and obtain unseen footage of her life.

Witnesses have said that she was shot in the heart by a sniper with the Basij militia force, who has been named as Abbas Kargar-Javid.

Iran's intelligence ministry is reportedly due to release its own documentary to remove "ambiguities" surrounding her death and provide "new evidence" about what it calls the west's version of events. Neda's family were under pressure to cooperate with the official documentary but refused. Two of her friends were forced to participate.

The Iranian regime will probably suggest again that Neda was an agent of the US and Britain who staged her own death and poured blood on her face. BBC Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne was also blamed for her killing before being expelled.

Meanwhile Ahmadinejad today warned the opposition of tough measures, ahead of protests next week. "Those who want to tarnish the image of the country and its system will be removed from the [political] scene," he said in a speech marking the 21st anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, architect of the 1979 Islamic revolution, which toppled the shah.

"The election last year was the most democratic in the world as nowhere else would 40 million people turn up for elections," he claimed. Ahmadinejad pledged: "Whoever stands against the Islamic system will not survive." Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Khomeini's successor as supreme leader, boasted that Iran, facing new UN sanctions over its nuclear programme, was in a position to "see off any conspiracies".

Democratic? Don’t make me laugh! It was as rigged as HMS Victory! A few Stalinist scumbags George Galloway, Seumas Milne et al may swallow that bullshit but most people don’t. Protests have been muted for several months but there is still a huge reservoir of anger among the people of Iran. Ahmadinejad is a dead man walking, metaphorically speaking. He will be flushed into the sewers of history, count on it.

Justice for Neda? Somehow I think not

Hypocrite

On MondayIranian “President” Ahmadinejad called the death of Neda Agha-Soltan "suspicious" and urged the authorities to identify those responsible.

Ahmadinejad told the head of Iran's judiciary, Ayatollah Hashemi Shahroudi, to probe the incident and make the results of his investigations public "The massive propaganda of the foreign media, as well as other evidence, proves the interference of the enemies of the Iranian nation who want to take political advantage and darken the pure face of the Islamic republic," he said in a letter to Shahroudi, according to the Fars news agency.

On the same day Press TV said Agha-Soltan did not die the way the opposition claims. Two people told the channel that there were no security forces in the area when she was killed. Also it claimed that the fatal bullet, from a small calibre pistol is not used by Iranian security forces.

According to a report on Press Tv today Iran's Police Chief, Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqadam, stated that Neda’s murder was a 'prearranged 'premeditated act of murder'. Ahmadi-Mogadam blamed Arash Hejazi (pictured below) who witnessed Neda's final moments, has fanned the flames of the western media hype. He said that the Iranian Intelligence Ministry is making every effort to discover the whereabouts of Hejazi. "He has fled the country and is working against the Iranian government abroad." In fact Arash Hejazi is postgraduate student at Oxford Brookes University rather than a fugitive. AFP also reports that Arash is also now wanted by Interpol

Scape goat?

According to CNN, Iran's ambassador to Mexico, Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri, has suggested that U.S. intelligence services could be responsible for her death."This death of Neda is very suspicious "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?...Well, if the CIA wants to kill some people and attribute that to the government elements, then choosing women is an appropriate choice, because the death of a woman draws more sympathy."

In the light of the above I wonder what the chance of Neda’s murder being pinned on the Basij militia? Somewhere between fat and fuck all, methinks. My money would be put on a joint Mossad.MI6/CIA operation carried out by a crack team consisting of the ghost of Ofra Haza, Emo Phillips and Jade Goody’s mum.

Needless to say they will besmirch the name of a young woman who appeared to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Meanwhile a respected author and translator seems to be the object of the regime's bile. No doubt if he was returned to Iran his fate would not be pleasant.

Simin Behbahani - A poem for Neda

For Neda Agha-Soltan

You are neither dead, nor will you die.

You will always remain alive.

You have an eternal existence.

You are the voice of the people of Iran.

Simin Behbahani "The Lioness of Iran" is Iran's greatest living poet and human rights advocate. If like me you do not read or speak Farsi. I would strongly recommend purchasing A Cup of Sin Selected Poems. Her works is extremely powerful in English. In Farsi it must be breathtaking. The poem was published on the NPR website

Neda’s family forced out of home?

Yesterday’s Guardian reported that the Iranian authorities had ordered the family of Neda Agha Soltan out of their Tehran home. Neighbours said that her family no longer lives in the four-floor apartment building on Meshkini Street, in eastern Tehran, having been forced to move since she was killed.

The authorities have apparently treated the family with utter contempt: They did not let the family have her body back, she was buried without letting her family know and the government banned mourning ceremonies at mosques, the neighbours said.
In accordance with tradition, the family had put up a mourning announcement and attached a black banner to the building. But the police took them down, refusing to allow the family to show any signs of mourning. The next day they were ordered to move out. Since then, neighbours have received suspicious calls warning them not to discuss her death with anyone and not to make any protest.

A tearful middle-aged woman who was an immediate neighbour said her family had not slept for days because of the oppressive presence of the Basij militia, out in force in the area harassing people since Soltan's death.The area in front of Soltan's house was empty (yesterday). There was no sign of black cloths, banners or mourning. Secret police patrolled the street.

"We are trembling," one neighbour said. "We are still afraid. We haven't had a peaceful time in the last days, let alone her family. Nobody was allowed to console her family, they were alone, they were under arrest and their daughter was just killed. I can't imagine how painful it was for them. Her friends came to console her family but the police didn't let them in and forced them to disperse and arrested some of them. Neda's family were not even given a quiet moment to grieve."

"In Iran, when someone dies, neighbours visit the family and will not let them stay alone for weeks but Neda's family was forced to be alone, otherwise the whole of Iran would gather here," he said. "The government is terrible, they are even accusing pro-Mousavi people of killing Neda and have just written in their websites that Neda is a Basiji (government militia) martyr. That's ridiculous – if that's true why don't they let her family hold any funeral or ceremonies? Since the election, you are not able to trust one word from the government."

WW - Neda

Neda Agha Soltani. Murdered by the Iranian regime 20 June 2009. This week's entry for the Tuesday and Wednesday editions of Wordless Wednesday.