Neda Fiancé Says She Was Deliberately Targeted

I don't doubt that she was targeted and if this deliberate murder of Neda Agha-Soltani was intended to send a message, it certainly has.

And backfired badly.

An Iranian woman shot dead during an election protest rally was deliberately targeted by undercover soldiers, her fiancé said today.

Caspian Makan claimed Neda Agha-Soltani had been picked out by Basij paramilitaries before being shot in the heart.

He also described his desperate attempts to dissuade her from going out in the streets on the day she was killed.

But the student, 27, told him the protests were worth attending 'even if a bullet hits my heart.'

'Unfortunately, that is how she died,' Mr Makan, a photographer, said. 'A bullet hit her heart and her lung, and maybe five or six minutes later, she died.'

Foreign media are banned from reporting on 'non-official' events in Iran and dozens of journalists have been arrested or deported in the latest crisis.

But the video of Neda bleeding to death has been broadcast across the globe and has become a rallying point for protesters

Friends have posted images and accounts of her life online. She appears to have been a happy, vivacious woman who embraced both traditional Iranian values and a more liberal lifestyle.

Some photographs show her in dress hugging her fiancé; others are of her in the traditional veil associated with stricter forms of Islam.

The second of three children, Neda's father is a civil servant while her mother is a housewife.

She had been studying Islamic philosophy at Azid university in Tehran but had dropped the course to pursue a career in tourism, taking private lessons and learning Turkish.

She had been to Thailand and Dubai as well as Turkey with friends.
Music was one of her great passions. She had been taking piano lessons and was said to be a gifted singer.

Mr Makan met her a few months ago when she was on holiday in Izmir, Turkey, a town on the Mediterranean.

He described Neda as a plain-spoken woman who loved poetry - Iran's Rumi and America's Robert Frost were her favourites and that her pacifism marked her out as a true Iranian.

'She didn't believe that we always have to fight and quarrel and be violent and have death,' he said.

'Neda only ever said that she wanted one thing, she wanted democracy and freedom for the people of Iran.

'There's only one thing (Iranians) must fight and that's ignorance. And you don't fight ignorance with a sword or a gun. You turn on a light.'

Consider the lights on.

Previously.

'Don't Worry. It's Just One Bullet and It's Over'

These maniacs in Iran might think they can hide what they've done from their own people, yet now the entire world knows what evil they're capable of.

Neda Agha-Soltan's memory will live a lot longer than the 26 years she had on earth, senselessly murdered in broad daylight by subhuman thugs.

Sure, they'll try to silence the people, but I'm optimistic they're too late.

The young Iranian woman whose gruesome killing has become a rallying cry for the nation's opposition movement eerily predicted her violent death by gunfire -- but was determined to protest against "the injustice of it all," a friend said yesterday.

As the violence continues to escalate on the streets of the embattled Middle Eastern nation, the beautiful philosophy student, Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, who had been engaged to be married, is being hailed as Iran's Joan of Arc.

The government yesterday blocked a wake for her in a central Tehran mosque for fear that the outpouring of grief would lead to more anti-regime protests, her fiancé, Caspian Makan, told the BBC.

"The authorities are aware that everybody in Iran and throughout the whole world knows about her story," Makan said.

"They were afraid that lots of people could turn up."

The 40-second video of Neda's death has not been aired on Iranian state-sponsored TV, but many in the country -- and worldwide -- have seen it on the Internet.

It captures Neda, shot in the heart, in her last moments of life, bleeding to death on the street as a friend wails, "Don't be afraid! Neda, dear!"

As the life leaves her face and blood pours from her nose, a white-haired man, her music teacher, yells, "Stay with me!"

Since the video made shock waves across the Web, her photo has been held aloft at demonstrations all over the globe.

But to her relatives, she is more than just an icon of change.

She loved Persian pop songs and her piano lessons, was the second of three children, and was passionate about travel.

In turns mischievous, smart and caring, Neda studied to become a tour guide and took Turkish language courses in the hopes of leading Iranian tourists on trips abroad, friends and relatives said.

On Saturday, the day she was killed, her friend told The Los Angeles Times that she had tried to persuade Neda to stay away from the massive march.

"I told her, 'Neda, don't go,' " the friend, who gave her name only as Golshad, told the paper.

But Neda was adamant.

"She said, 'Don't worry. It's just one bullet and it's over,' " recalled Hamid Panihi, the music teacher and friend who was with her when she died.

"She couldn't stand the injustice of it all," he told the paper.

Neither can most of us. Don't worry though, there won't be any repercussions from the hot dog crew.

Meanwhile, it appears the hairy munchkin could soon be jettisoned to sooth protests.

Iran's powerful mullahs are considering replacing the nation's hard-line "supreme leader" or forcing the resignation of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in hopes of ending the 10 days of angry protests by pro-democracy demonstrators, it was reported yesterday.

A committee of religious leaders would take over for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to the plan secretly under review by members of Iran's Assembly of Experts, sources in the holy city of Qom told Al Arabiya TV.

Another option to end the crisis is the resignation of Ahmadinejad, the news channel said.

Considering Ahmadinejad came in third, that's the least he should do.

Check out Amir Taheri on the differences between now and 1979.

In 1979, the people looked to the Shiite clergy for leadership. This time, the clergy is pushed into the background. The new "moral references" of Iranian society are no longer clerics; they are intellectuals, academics, lawyers and independent trade-union leaders. Whatever the struggle's outcome, one thing is certain: Mullahs will never regain their position of moral authority in Iranian politics.

Another difference is that the ruling elite in 1979 had little stomach for a fight. Many of its members had homes and investments abroad and thus could just pack and leave -- they weren't forced to fight with their backs to the wall.

But the overwhelming majority of today's ruling elite has no fallback position. If driven from power, "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei or Ahmadinejad would have nowhere to go. They have no choice but to fight to the bitter end. This time, it is in the opposition camp that one finds most of those who can pack and go to golden exile abroad.

Maybe there'll be some teaching posts available at Berkeley.

It's curious, but has anyone noticed the American left, still seething over the Florida recount nine years ago, has been virtually silent over an actual stolen election?

Funny how that is. They're outraged daily over some innocuous Rush Limbaugh comment taken out of context, yet can't summon the energy to decry a murder in broad daylight in front of the entire world.

Instapundit links. Thanks!