Neda Soltan's family 'forced out of home' by Iran Gov?

[frigidmagi]

Guardian

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.

"We just know that they [the family] were forced to leave their flat," a neighbour said. The Guardian was unable to contact the family directly to confirm if they had been forced to leave.

The government is also accusing protesters of killing Soltan, describing her as a martyr of the Basij militia. Javan, a pro-government newspaper, has gone so far as to blame the recently expelled BBC correspondent, Jon Leyne, of hiring "thugs" to shoot her so he could make a documentary film.

Soltan was shot dead on Saturday evening near the scene of clashes between pro-government militias and demonstrators, turning her into a symbol of the Iranian protest movement. Barack Obama spoke of the "searing image" of Soltan's dying moments at his press conference yesterday.

Amid scenes of grief in the Soltan household with her father and mother screaming, neighbours not only from their building but from others in the area streamed out to protest at her death. But the police moved in quickly to quell any public displays of grief. They arrived as soon as they found out that a friend of Soltan had come to the family flat.

In accordance with Persian tradition, the family had put up a mourning announcement and attached a black banner to the building.

But the police took them down, refusing to allow the family to show any signs of mourning. The next day they were ordered to move out. Since then, neighbours have received suspicious calls warning them not to discuss her death with anyone and not to make any protest.

A tearful middle-aged woman who was an immediate neighbour said her family had not slept for days because of the oppressive presence of the Basij militia, out in force in the area harassing people since Soltan's death.

The area in front of Soltan's house was empty today. There was no sign of black cloths, banners or mourning. Secret police patrolled the street.

"We are trembling," one neighbour said. "We are still afraid. We haven't had a peaceful time in the last days, let alone her family. Nobody was allowed to console her family, they were alone, they were under arrest and their daughter was just killed. I can't imagine how painful it was for them. Her friends came to console her family but the police didn't let them in and forced them to disperse and arrested some of them. Neda's family were not even given a quite moment to grieve."

Another man said many would have turned up to show their sympathy had it not been for the police.

"In Iran, when someone dies, neighbours visit the family and will not let them stay alone for weeks but Neda's family was forced to be alone, otherwise the whole of Iran would gather here," he said. "The government is terrible, they are even accusing pro-Mousavi people of killing Neda and have just written in their websites that Neda is a Basiji (government militia) martyr. That's ridiculous – if that's true why don't they let her family hold any funeral or ceremonies? Since the election, you are not able to trust one word from the government." A shopkeeper said he had often met Soltan, who used to come to his store.

"She was a kind, innocent girl. She treated me well and I appreciated her behaviour. I was surprised when I found out that she was killed by the riot police. I knew she was a student as she mentioned that she was going to university. She always had a nice peaceful smile and now she has been sacrificed for the government's vote-rigging in the presidential election."

The Iranian government fucks up by the numbers here. Recently they've been trying to push the idea that some agent provocateur killed Neda, going so far as to blame a BBC reporter of staging the killing to make a documentary. This flies in the face of the narrative and ensures those closest to this poor young women in life will never believe, never trust and never forgive. Nor is Neda the only victim whose survivors are being treated so barbarously.

These actions create iron lumps of resistance in the society they wish to govern. Lumps, that they will choke on if it take 5 months or 5 decades.

[LadyTevar]

By making an issue out of it, they only make it worse.

[The Minx]

Sorry, bit of a tangent here:

Link

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) -- The United States may have been behind the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan, the 26-year-old Iranian woman whose fatal videotaped shooting Saturday made her a symbol of opposition to the June 12 presidential election results, the country's ambassador to Mexico said Thursday.

"This death of Neda is very suspicious," Ambassador Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri said. "My question is, how is it that this Miss Neda is shot from behind, got shot in front of several cameras, and is shot in an area where no significant demonstration was behind held?"

He suggested that the CIA or another intelligence service may have been responsible.

"Well, if the CIA wants to kill some people and attribute that to the government elements, then choosing women is an appropriate choice, because the death of a woman draws more sympathy," Ghadiri said.

In response, CIA spokesman George Little said, "Any suggestion that the CIA was responsible for the death of this young woman is wrong, absurd and offensive."

Though the video appeared to show that she had been shot in the chest, Ghadiri said that the bullet was found in her head and that it was not of a type used in Iran.

"These are the methods that terrorists, the CIA and spy agencies employ," he said. "Naturally, they would like to see blood spilled in these demonstrations, so that they can use it against the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is of the common methods that the CIA employs in various countries."

But, he added, "I am not saying that now the CIA has done this. There are different groups. It could be the [work of another] intelligence service; it could be the CIA; it could be the terrorists. Anyway, there are people who employ these types of methods."

Asked about his government's imposition of restrictions on reporting by international journalists, Ghadiri blamed the reporters themselves.

"Some of the reporters and mass media do not reflect the truth," he said.

For example, he said, international news organizations have lavished coverage on demonstrations by supporters of Mir Hossein Moussavi, whom the government has said lost to the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by a landslide.

But those same news organizations have not shown "many, many demonstrations in favor of the winner," he said.

Further, he said, members of the international news media have failed to report on people setting banks and buses afire or attacking other people. "The only things they show are the reactions of the police," he said.

Because of restrictions on reporting in Iran, CNN has been unable to confirm many of the reports and claims relating to protests.

Ghadiri said it is only fair that security forces protect the lives and property of the Iranian people.

"If in America supporters of Mr. McCain had gotten out on the street and tried to burn the banks during the last election, do you think the police would just sit idly by and be a spectator?" he asked, referring to the GOP presidential candidate who lost the presidential vote in November to Barack Obama.

Ghadiri called on backers of Moussavi to "accept the majority's victory."

Ahmadinejad's overwhelming victory was no surprise, Ghadiri said, noting that a poll published in the United States three weeks before the June 12 elections showed Ahmadinejad with a commanding lead. "Why don't you show that?" he asked.

Ghadiri also addressed questions about the rapid reporting of the election results, which the opposition has cited as evidence that the ballots were not properly counted.

"It wasn't said that only four people counted the 40 million votes," he said. "There were tens of thousands of people in Iran who counted these votes. They declared that this is very simple."

So now they're attempting to blame the CIA for the mess they caused.

[Batman]

So whom exactly are they spinning those yarns for? Nobody in the REST of the world is going to buy it and the very fact that the social uproar which resulted in this EXISTS means nobody at home is going to buy it either. They didn't like the election results and tried a coup while extremely incompetently trying to make it look like they weren't.
The way they're handling things the iranian government looks not only evil, they look evil and INCOMPETENT. And quite possibly desperate.

[Stofsk]

I think it's more desperation. They probably didn't think civil unrest would have resulted from dodgy polling, so they're probably reacting badly out of desperation.

[frigidmagi]

My thought is they are feeling if they can clamp down hard enough and long enough, any story they chose to tell will in the end win out in Iran. They don't care about the rest of the world, in fact if the rest of the world loudly denies them it suits their purpose. In order to get past this they must make a chunk of the average Iranians believe the rest of the planet is plotting against them. A siege mentality is needed.

I do not know if they can pull it off. I hope not.