Witness to Neda’s Death

LONDON (Reuters) – One person captured on Internet videos helping “Neda,” the young Iranian woman killed last week who has become an icon of the protests, was identified by a British newspaper on Friday as a doctor who has since fled Iran.

“I felt she was trying to ask a question, ‘Why?’,” Dr. Arash Hejazi told the Times in an interview as he recalled her final moments lying in a street with blood pouring from her body.

“She was just a person in the street who was against the injustice going on in her country, and for that she was murdered,” said Hejazi, an Iranian who is resident in Britain but says he went to Tehran on a business trip.

Hejazi said Neda Agha Soltan, a 26-year-old music student, was killed by a government militiaman.

Iran has accused the West, particularly Britain and the United States, of inciting violence. State television has blamed violence on “terrorists” and “vandals.”

Hejazi, 38, said he fled from Iran when the video footage sped around the world on websites because he feared his own life might be in danger as he could be seen with Soltan.

(BBC News) – The doctor who tried to save an Iranian protester as she bled to death on a street in Tehran has told the BBC of her final moments. Dr Arash Hejazi, who is studying at a university in the south of England, said he ran to Neda Agha-Soltan’s aid after seeing she had been shot in the chest.

“We ran to her and lay her on the ground. I saw the bullet wound just below the neck with blood gushing out. I have never seen such a thing because the bullet, it seemed to have blasted inside her chest …”

Despite his attempts to stop the bleeding she died in less than a minute, he said.

Dr Hejazi said he saw Ms Soltan, who he did not know, with an older man who he thought was her father but later on learned was her music teacher.

Video of Ms Soltan’s death was posted on the internet and images of her have become a rallying point for Iranian opposition supporters around the world.

Dr Hejazi also told how passers-by then seized an armed Basij militia volunteer who appeared to admit shooting Ms Soltan.

Dr Hejazi said he had not slept for three nights following the incident, but he wanted to speak out so that her death was not in vain. He doubted that he would be able to return to Iran after talking openly about Ms Soltan’s killing.  

(The 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.