:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::
"Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day - 23 minutes - and that's supposed to be enough." -Walter Cronkite, RE TV news. The Web has changed that for many, however, and here is an extra dose for your daily news cocktail. This prescription tends to include surveillance and now war-related links, along with the occasional pop culture junk and whatever else seizes my attention as I scan online news sites.:: 6.22.2009 ::
:: Protest & Mourning in Iran ::
Iranian riot police tear gas 'Neda' mourners, vow to 'decisively' crush demonstrations
BY Helen Kennedy
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Warning that any more demonstrations would be "decisively" crushed, Iranian authorities broke up all attempts Monday to publicly mourn protest icon Neda Soltan.
Protesters who tried to gather for a vigil for the woman slain Saturday by a single bullet to the heart were chased away with tear gas, batons and low-flying helicopters, witnesses reported.
The helicopters were effective at spreading fear: during Saturday's demonstrations, witnesses claimed choppers dropped burning liquid on the crowds. It was initially reported to be boiling water. Later reports said it was a chemical agent.
There were unconfirmed reports on the popular Persian website Balatarin that the commander of the Revolutionary Guards in Tehran was arrested for refusing to obey orders from Iran's Supreme Leader to use force against protesters.
General Ali Fazli, a one-eyed veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, was said to have been fired and taken into custody.
Neda's fiance, Kaspin Makan, told BBC Persia that she was hastily buried Sunday and the government had barred her family from holding any public funeral.
"The authorities are aware that everybody in Iran and throughout the whole world knows about her story," he told the BBC. "They were afraid that lots of people could turn up."
He said Neda wasn't a supporter of either side in the disputed June 12 election between President Mamoud Ahmadinejad and Mir Hossein Mousavi but simply "wanted freedom for all."
Nevertheless, Neda has become a symbol and rallying cry for those rebelling against Ahmadinejad's suspiciously large landslide. She is being compared to Tiananamen Square's Tank Man, the unarmed protester who stood in front of a tank, and hailed as "Iran's Joan of Arc."
Mousavi's Facebook page calls the 26-year-old philosophy student, who was initially identified as a teenager, a "martyr and hero."
Her quick and gruesome death was captured on amateur video as a distraught man her fiance says was her music teacher repeats "don't be afraid, don't be afraid, Neda dear, don't be afraid." The graphic and heartrending video has been watched more than 250,000 times on YouTube.
Her picture, open-eyed in death, is on Web sites all over the world.
It is not clear from the video who shot her.
Read more here.
A L S O
Iran fury as YouTube screens last moments of woman shot dead at democracy rally
Daily Mail UK
[THE FIRST YOUTUBE MARTYR?]
Neda Agha Soltani Killed In Cold Blood
Huffington Post
Neda Video: Neda Agha-Soltani Becomes Symbol of Protest in Iran
The Now Public Iran Elections page
posted by me
:: 10:00:00 PM [+] ::
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