Neda Agha Soltan

Neda and Marwa: One becomes an icon, the other is unmentioned
On June 20th 2009, Neda Agha Soltan was shot dead during the post-election protests in Iran. The protests occupied the largest news segments around the world, with analysts and commentators predicting the fall of the Iranian regime and the dawn of freedom breaking in “the axis of evil.”

Neda’s death became an icon of the Iranian opposition and a symbol for millions of people of the injustice of the Iranian regime and the defiance of the protesters. Neda’s death was put in context. It was taken from the personal realm of the death of an individual to the public realm of the just cause of a whole society.

From yesterdays GDN paper...

" TEHRAN:
A hardline Iranian cleric called yesterday for the execution of leading "rioters" to teach a lesson to the tens of thousands who have protested against the result of the presidential election two weeks ago.

"I want the judiciary to ... punish leading rioters firmly and without showing any mercy to teach everyone a lesson," Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a member of the Assembly of Experts, told worshippers at Tehran University.

Iran's top legislative body, the Guardian Council, said it had found no major violations in the election, which it described as the "healthiest" since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but said 10 per cent of ballot boxes would be recounted.