Three years ago today Neda Agha-Soltan was shot and killed, likely by a member of the Basij (an Iranian paramilitary force), during a peaceful protest in the streets of Tehran following the controversial Iranian Presidential election of 2009.
Multiple videos which captured her death were uploaded across the Internet and subsequently viewed by millions of people, sparking outrage not only within Iran but around the world. She quickly became a symbol of the Iranian protest movement.
Before Neda’s murder, the street protests against Iran’s stolen election had been a revolution without a face, doomed to be crushed by brute authority and eventually forgotten. But Neda’s dying gaze drew the eyes of the world. We can neither look away nor forget.
We will not forget her.
(January 23, 1983 - June 20, 2009)
