Neda – a call to freedom and a tragic, iconic image

Posted on | 21 June 2009 | 2 Comments

You don’t really need to see the video.  It is brutal.  I pulled this frame from it.

This is Neda in the last seconds of her life after she was gunned down while standing next to her father as they watched the demonstrations in Tehran.  I am not posting the entire video, just a look at her last look at life.

I won’t try to attach meaning this image of the last, living expression on her face, as it speaks differently to everyone.

I do recommend the post by Synthesis, which I have lifted and placed below.  The original and more can be found here, along with links to the video (if you want to hear a father’s horrified cries).

During the Vietnam War, Kent State demonstrations led to the Ohio National Guard firing into the crowd of student protesters.  Senior photojournalism major John Filo snapped a photo of Mary Vecchio, screaming with arms outstretched  over the dead body of a student killed in the gunfire.  The photo became an icon of the beginning of the end of Vietnam War.

Unfortunately, the democracy fighters of Iran now have their iconic image.

I am crying as I write this.

It is rapidly becoming the most galvanizing image in a week of drama and tragedy – perhaps the most image-saturated week in the history of the internet. I am talking about the unbelievable and heartbreaking events in Iran, a week of human drama captured in TwitPics, Flikr photos, YouTube videos, cellphone camera pics and blogs and hi-def video and…

Despite the billions upon billions of megapixels of imagery that have been captured to characterize this clash — seas of greens, motorcyle thugs, clouds of tear gas, masked protesters — one image is starting to make an impression above all the others, even in the short-attention-span universe of Twitter.

Early today, a beautiful young woman was demonstrating in Tehran, along with her father. When friction between the Basiji – the brutal packs of militia that patrol the streets of Tehran, beating women and children and students — and the demonstrators broke out, it was her ill-fortune to become one of the first victims of Basiji homicide, though she was doing nothing more than standing by innocently, watching.

It is said that a Basij sniper shot her through the heart, simply to see her die.

The final moments of her tender young life leaked into the pavement of Karegeh Street today, captured by cell phone cameras. And not long after, took on new life, flickering across computer screens around the world on YouTube, and even CNN.

The words of her fellow students, her fellow Iranians are already burning an indelible message into cyberspace. Within minutes of her name being identified, it became the fastest-rising ‘trending topic’ on Twitter.

Her name was Neda, an innocent bystander shot dead just for watching.

We are Neda and all those who fell with her.

Neda is one Iranian. Neda is all Iranians.

RT May God cradle #NEDA in Peace and wake her soul to show her that she was not lost for nothing, her blood rained freedom

The World cries seeing your last breath, you didn’t die in vain. We remember you.

It has been reported that the name Neda means voice or call in Farsi…

Her name was Neda…

She is the voice of the people. She is a call to freedom.

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