The Murder Seen Around the World

I would like to start this post by thanking my classmate Sahar for suggesting I cover this topic in my blog. Also please note that many of the videos linked below are violent.

The events of post-election Iran were vastly affected by the use of the internet. One of the most infamous internet videos from the protests was the filmed death of Neda Agha-Soltani. On the evening of June 20th, just eight days after election day, at a time when millions of other Irans flooded the streets in protest of the fraudulent elections, Neda Agha-Soltani, accompanied by her music teacher was walking through the streets of Tehran. It was then and there that she was shot in the chest. Ms. Agha-Soltani died moments after being shot, a spectacle seen the world over because of a video taken by nearby witness. The video is violent and painful to watch; but it galvanized millions of people from within Iran and without. Everyone witnessed the shamelessness and brutality of the Iranian government forces. The death of this young woman was a watershed moment in the life of the protest movement. It was the single most significant use of the internet in the short existence of the Green movement. While many videos that were posted showed basij and government forces beating, wounding and arresting protestors, this video was the most powerful of all. Many others had already surfaced (like this one and this) but Neda's death was starkly brutal and soon became a rallying point for the supporters of the Green movement. Her death was such a threat to the government they have spent the last few months scrambling for responses to the ordeal. They have desecrated her grave, prevented her family from conducting the proper burial and mourning rights; they even imprisoned her fiance for over two months. They have also blamed foreign agents (a regular go-to for these scumbags) in a documentary aired in January on state-run Press TV.

Just like many other people, this video is hard for me to watch. It is terrifying and cold. It represents all that is wrong and all that is evil in Iran. What makes it harder to watch is the disgusting report filed on Press TV. I am made sick and deeply angered by that video. It is such an affront to common sense and more importantly to this woman's life and death.

This horrible, horrible incident unfolded in front of the entire world because of the incident: the protests, the bloody murder of Neda, the bloody beatings and murders of countless other Iranians, and also, unfortunately, the despicable and self-obsessed videos from the Iranian government. At the same time that the internet has helped spread the cause of democracy for Iran and awareness of the crimes against the people, it still helps convey the desperate message of the regime.

I say desperate because their banning of proper burial rights and defamation of her family (just to name a few) are prime examples of a lost and misguided leadership. These people are scared; they know they have committed crimes but they do not care what they do as long as the remain in power--that is their central goal. Their survival is the primary objective and that only makes them more dangerous.