World Watch
June 21, 2010 5:46 AM

"For Neda" Gives Iran Resistance a New Tool

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The documentary "For Neda" premiered on HBO2 TV on Sunday, but days earlier -- in fact, as of the middle of last week - it was freely available on YouTube.

It's an unusual way to release a new movie, but this is an unusual movie.

It is at once the story of a murder and a victory for truth in a landscape of lies.

As the documentary's British director explained, "The Iranian security forces may be monitoring the Internet, and slowing online speeds to a crawl -- but they can't stop DVD's going viral."

Anthony Thomas hopes that computer-savvy reformers in Iran will download the documentary (in its Farsi version) for mass copying.

If, as the filmmakers hope, it spreads like wildfire, Iranians who have been left wondering what happened on June 20, 2009 will no longer be held hostage by the "official" version of the truth.

Click below to watch CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer's report:

Neda Agha Soltan was the young philosophy student whose dying moments were captured on cell phone video.

After she was shot during the protests a year ago, her beautiful, bloodied face became a global symbol of the Iranian opposition, the so-called Green movement.

For a while, it looked as if the millions of Iranians who took to the streets in the wake of the disputed presidential election would force political reform.

Instead, the Iranian government fought back.

Amnesty International estimates that 5,000 people associated with the Green movement have been arrested in the past 12 months.

After grotesque show trials, there were mass imprisonments, torture, and rapes of both men and women by Iranian security forces.

One thing the Iranian government has not been able to suppress, however, are the images of Neda's death. They expose the Iranian regime, which cloaks itself in religious piety, as corrupt and ruthless.

So the government has tried to distort the story.

At public meetings, religious events and on TV, regime representatives have given an array of alternative endings to Neda's life. They include: she was killed by the CIA and "Zionist spies"; she was actually shot by fellow protestors; her killing was staged on purpose by Green activists to make a propaganda video.

Most recently, Iranian state television coerced Neda's friends to appear in an "investigative" program to cast doubt on the identity of the man who shot her.

In fact, witnesses in the crowd that day all say he was a pro-government Basij militiaman.

"For Neda" sets the record straight. In it, Neda Agha Soltan's family tells her story, first-hand, their own way.

Courageously and openly, her mother, father, sister and brother describe Neda's life, her political views, and the role the authorities played before and after her death.

A violent crackdown may have driven Iran's Green movement off the streets for now, but the information war rages on.

To its credit, HBO has handed Iran's reformers a powerful new weapon.

More on the film, and post-Neda Iran:

CBS News Meets the Filmmaker
Russia Denounces U.S. Sanctions on Iran
Clinton on New Iran Sanctions
Will Sanctions Really Hurt Iran?
"Neda" Becomes an Internet Icon

Add a Comment
by jwesel1 June 25, 2010 6:57 PM EDT
You won't hear news in which a government that's a puppet of the West kills its citizens. Only if it happens in Iran and that's unproven.

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AP) - Several thousand Egyptians, joined by top opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, protested on Friday what they call authorities' systematic use of torture in the largest demonstration yet sparked by the alleged beating death of a young man by police this month.

The death of Khaled Said has become a rallying point for pro-reform activists and rights workers who say police abuse is rampant and made possible by a three-decade-old emergency law.
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by isabeltp June 22, 2010 6:01 PM EDT
I saw this documentary, I thought it was great and very real. I commend the iranian people and those who protested you can see the country needs change and they want a true democracy. In my eyes, Neda is a martyr, a young woman who wanted to have freedom of speech and see her country turn into a true democracy.
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by EstherHaman June 22, 2010 4:32 PM EDT
I watched the HBO documentary for 10 minutes and then it started to sound like a propaganda and I changed the channel. I am wondering if we ever showed anything like that program when SHAH of Iran was in power back then! Or was it because we really did not care about the Iranians back then!! Now, out of a sudden we are in love with the Iranians and we just don't care much about their OIL any longer!!

The funny thing is that we trained the SHAH's secret police SAVAK, CIA put him in power in 1953 and trained his butchers to keep the resistance at bay and him in power. But when the time was right we did away with SHAH as we did with Saddam Husein of Iraq. But now the Iranians are well aware of that chapter of their history and will not side with us, maybe because they are a bit upset for what we did to them, then and afterwards.

So, this sort of IGNORANCE in the US will take us NO where. We can't even fool ourselves any more. We want to be liked, but we just can't figure out how to go about it! You people think is that it? Get real.

We want their oil and we want the oil in that region like we can taste it and we don't give e rats A-S about the people of that region, Iranians, Arabs or Afghanis. Just give us your oil and we'll live you alone, maybe.
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by Htos1 June 21, 2010 3:28 PM EDT
I've always admired Iranians who wish to live in our modern world,and we should support these citizens here and in their country.
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by samael2014 June 21, 2010 1:12 PM EDT
"If, as the filmmakers hope, it spreads like wildfire, Iranians who have been left wondering what happened on June 20, 2009 will no longer be held hostage by the "official" version of the truth. "

See, one of the problems here is that the media has already super-saturated the public with this Nada propaganda campaign. This is like trying to sell tickets to a movie that's already been shown on TV. You're going to get the same die-hard supporters saying the same things, but who in the hell hasn't seen this already?

Plus it's clearly a propaganda tool that never gives you a different spin. I mean we just had an INTERNATIONAL night-time hi-jacking of Turkish and American humanitarians at sea by Isreali commandos that left NINE people dead, including at least one Turkish-American shot in the face four times and once in the chest. And we know ABSOLUTELY who did this. A far more oppressive and direct act of terrorism against the citizens of another country than the apparent killing of Nada, AND I'm still waiting for due process for prosecuting the killers who have already admitted doing this, and were video-taped in the process of boarding this flotilla -- in violation of international law. Clearly a hi-jacking, clearly people aboard the flotilla that was hi-jacked in the middle of the night suffered casualties at the hands of the hi-jackers, clearly at least one of American birth was shot directly in the head and face four times and once in the chest.

The timing of what is clearly an Iranian domestic concern, turned into an international propaganda campaign against Iran to attempt to re-ignite a confrontation that never had a legal and credible challenge to an election declaring a winner by a clear majority -- that once again could not even rationally have been challenged based on the demographic representation of all Iranian voters, is pathetic to say the least.

A testament to a "free press". One that works harder to form opinion about other countries internal politics, than the injustices that face us in our own countries and abroad, as well as real violations of international law and crimes against humanity, where the perpetrators don't even deny they committed an act that left someone dead, just that the "free press" joins them in turning this into a mis-understanding that could have been avoided.

The double-standards make your head spin. But worse, real acts of murder with know perpetrators are not being prosecuted. And the "free press" only cares if it's Iran or Israel, before turning a blind eye.

It use to be hard to believe a main-stream news media outlet could even engage in a long-term propaganda campaign to try to turn the tide of an election (that had a clear winner accepted by heads of state around the world) and the internal politics of another country, let alone regurgitate this in place of aggressive investigative journalism demanding justice for these humanitarian activists hi-jacked and brutally murdered in the night at sea by Israel.

But... here it is. And it was already on HBO and already part of a massive propaganda campaign over a year ago.
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by zippiez June 21, 2010 12:27 PM EDT
Iranian leadership response to anyone they don't like: Kill 'em all. Let Allah sort 'em out.
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by irreverent1-2009 June 21, 2010 11:57 AM EDT
When I look for the true face of Iran I will always see Neda's.
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by rocketjl June 21, 2010 11:34 AM EDT
I hope the people of Iran get justice and hang those in power now.
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by CHReed June 21, 2010 11:14 AM EDT
Awesome video putting a very human face on the tragedy that still is Iran. I can't see how anyone could not be moved by this piece.
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