(AFP) — The son of the late shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, was Monday carrying in his breastpocket a photograph of the slain protester known as Neda said to have been killed in the Tehran protests.
“I have added her (Neda) to the list of my daughters. She is now forever in my pocket,” Pahlavi told AFP fighting back tears, after calling at a press conference for Western media and governments to stand strongly alongside the protest movement in Iran.
The former crown prince of Iran took from his left breastpocket photographs of his wife, Yasmine, and three daughters, Noor, Iman and Farah, and, in the same clutch of images, one of a veiled Neda.
He held them up silently, and stammered an apology for having tears in his eyes.
A video of a blood-drenched young woman, purportedly killed in protests in Tehran, has been flashed around the world via the Internet since it was posted Saturday.
The woman, known only as Neda, has become a symbol of Iranian defiance of the country’s Islamic rulers and their insistence that hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won this month’s presidential election.
In a speech at the packed National Press Club in Washington, Pahlavi slammed the “brutal violence of the regime’s plain-clothes thugs against unarmed people” and urged global media to continue to be “the international artery” of the Iranian protest movement.
“No one will benefit from closing his or her eyes to knives and cables cutting into faces and mouths of our young and old, or from bullets piercing our beloved ‘Neda’ whose only sin was the quest for freedom — no one but tyrants and their thugs,” Pahlavi said, breaking off his speech as he was overcome by emotion.
According to Iranian state radio, at least 457 people were detained in street clashes in Tehran on Saturday that left 10 people dead, bringing the overall toll from a week of violence to at least 17.
Pahlavi said the toll was probably higher than reported, but added it was hard to come up with an exact number because, sources inside Iran have told him, victims “are often dragged to places where even their own families can’t recover them.”
Source:
dprogram.wordpress.com 
Any idea how many protesters have been (or will be) brutalized or murdered by the AMERICAN police state, which is, as we speak, busily ensuring that political protest–or even the thought of it–is an illegal act of terrorism? No one in THIS country has got any business criticizing any OTHER nation’s government for squashing political protest.
When are average-Joe sleeping Americans going to think about using our OWN police brutality as leverage for a regime change here at home? Never–since they don’t want to end up in “indefinite preventive detention” facilities.
It is astonishing how easy it is to point the accusatory finger at someone else’s crimes, while avoiding the merest glimpse into the mirror.
Before we allow ourselves to be emotionally manipulated into a “war” over this sad brutality, consider first how many Nedas will have to be murdered in order to bring America’s so-called “democracy” to Iran: as many as in Vietnam? more than in Iraq? less than in Afghanistan?
OUR government is no better than theirs, Friends, so it is time to start the introductions: “Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, meet pot.”
So what are YOU doing to fight fascism?
In 2008, we voted in a reformist because the conservatives sucked – we went to the polls and now, after eight years of crap, just like that we have a new government. The Iranians tried to do the same this month, and now they are being slaughtered with axes. Until you are standing in the street risking being shot by a murderous militia, comparing the US to Iran sounds more like the self-aggrandizing Republican thing to do.
As a reminder –
Rep. Pete Hoekstra: “Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House.”
Responses:
– “Stuck inside working from home today. Now I know how Anne Frank felt. #petehoekstra”
– “I crossed the street this morning and stopped a bus. I felt like that guy on Tienanmen Sq. #petehoekstra”
Any idea how many protesters have been (or will be) brutalized or murdered by the AMERICAN police state, which is, as we speak, busily ensuring that political protest–or even the thought of it–is an illegal act of terrorism? No one in THIS country has got any business criticizing any OTHER nation’s government for squashing political protest.
—Guess what , you can and are speaking your opinion right here ! Think you could do it in Iran ? Is the US oppressing the right of Iranians to have any opinions or internet except Twitter . Who is afraid , a bunch of old bearded bastard ayatollahs who manipulate religoun for their own benefit . The Iranian Government are like Nazis .
Take your finger and point it at yourself .
The TWitter accounts of these supposed Iranian students were fraudulent. They were found to have IP’s that came from Israel. And the first poster is right, unarmed protestors have been tortured, beat up, arrested, tasered, maced, ad naseum by American police, DHS, and FBI for the past 5 years. Both the RNC and DNC conventions in 2004 and 2008 had mass arrests of not only peaceful protestors, but liscensed journalists who had ID badges. The St. Paul, Minnesota arrests of RNC protestors was especially bad. 100’s were arrested in their homes before the convention even started!
And lets not forget the Israeli government who has been murdering, torturing, and arresting protestors for decades, yet nothing is ever mentioned in US media because it is all owned by jews. There has been 1000’s of peaceful protestors arrested and/or murdered for simply protesting about their homes being destroyed or a family member being killed. In Iran, 400 Iranian police had to be hospitalized because they were assaulted. 100’s of buildings and vehicles were lit on fire. This isn’t the signs of a “protest”, this is more the signs of a riot. If even one car is torched in the USA during a protest, you can bet that police would attack and assault everyone with rubber bullets, mace, tasers, etc.