Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. - Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail, 1963
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| Parents mark anniversary of their daughter Neda Agha-Soltan's death |
A young woman's
last moments in Tehran are captured on June 20, 2009 on a camera phone and uploaded to the internet and seen by tens of millions. The cries of desperation in Farsi by their tone and sadness transcend language and place, in this case Iran. Five have passed and her killers have not been brought to justice and the regime responsible for her death continues to rule in her homeland. Her name was Neda Agha Soltan and she never got to see her 27th birthday.
Nine months later at the 2010 Geneva Summit for Human Rights, Tolerance and Democracy I gave the
welcome address on behalf of the summit organizers and placed the situation of Iran in context while introducing
her fiancé who would
later address the Summit:
In Iran, the contested June election sparked an unprecedented wave of
state-sponsored violence and repression. Thousands of peaceful
protesters were beaten, arrested, tortured, and killed. One of them Neda
Agha-Soltan, age 26, was shot and killed on June 20, 2009 during the
protests denouncing election fraud. Her fiancé, Caspian Makan, is with
us here today, and will address the Summit tomorrow. Neda’s death was
captured on video and in those terrible moments reflected the great
crime committed by the Iranian government against the people of Iran.
Official numbers place the number of killed at 36 during the protests
but the opposition places the dead at 72. In 2009 at least 270 people
were hanged and in 2010 at least 12 so far. 4,000 have been arrested
including journalists and reformist politicians.
Five years later and the full gravity of not only the killing of an innocent woman who wanted a better future for her country but the extreme lengths that the Iranian government would go to cover up their crime. In George Orwell's dystopian novel
1984 the Inner Party member O'Brien
explained the logic of rewriting history: "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the
present controls the past." The Iranian secret service demonstrated this idea in action with Neda Agha Soltan.
The Guardian newspaper reported on June 24, 2009:
"The Iranian authorities have ordered the family of Neda Agha Soltan
out of their Tehran home after shocking images of her death were
circulated around the world. 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
police did not hand the body back to her family, her funeral was
cancelled, she was buried without letting her family know and the
government banned mourning ceremonies at mosques, the neighbours said.
This was because the family refused to lie, as the Iranian secret police wanted, and say that Neda was
murdered by anti-government protesters and not say that it was the Iranian government and its militia that killed their daughter. Even a complete stranger
had her life turned upside down over a mix up of photos online.
Neda Soltani, a lady whose picture was mistakenly confused by the media
with Neda Agha-Soltan
explained how the Iranian secret service destroyed her life in Iran because they wanted to take advantage of
the mix up: “They wanted to use me to say the whole thing was a fake
made up by Western media – ‘see, here is this Neda and she is alive." When this university professor refused to go along with this grotesque fraud she and her family were interrogated by the secret police. “They were threatening me and my brother and my mother. They
charged me with treason. They said I was endangering the security of my
own country. I knew what that meant: death.” She fled the country and now lives in exile and
has written a book My Stolen Face giving an account of what happened.
Others do succumb to regime pressures. Neda's music teacher,
Hamid Panahi, who was with her when she died was put under intense pressure by the regime after
the video went viral. He was interrogated and threatened for hours and
finally succumbed to pressure to appear in a
shameful Press TV documentary and say things that the regime wanted him to say. Those close to Panahi say he went into a severe depression after he appeared on the program and never managed to get over it. Panachi
died today on the fifth anniversary of Neda's death of a heart attack.
Social media reports that
two were arrested at Neda's graveside today on the anniversary of her death. Iran News Update had
reported that friends, family and admirers would gather to hold a ceremony on June 20 at 16:30 where she now rests at Behesht Zahra section 257, row 41, number 32 and place flowers on her shrine and pray for her spirit.
Martin Luther King Jr.
once observed that "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" and unfortunately the impunity that the Iranian regime continues to operate under only encourages more killing and not only in Iran. In Venezuela young women engaged in nonviolent protests under circumstances
eerily similar to Neda's and it is known that the Iranian regime has close ties to the
Venezuelan regime and the
Iranian intelligence service has a
presence in the South American country. Unfortunately that means that we must now also remember
Génesis Carmona,
Geraldine Moreno,
Adriana Urquiola and many others killed by pro-government forces to instill terror and discourage citizens peacefully assembling to demand change for the better.
We must continue to pursue justice for all of them and keep them in our memory. Five years later the regime's
press crackdown and repression continues in Iran as does repression against those who remember and honor Neda Agha Soltan.
We owe it to Neda and those persecuted for honoring her
to remember and let others learn of this injustice. Use the hashtag
#NedaSpeaks and spread the word.
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