Neda's death could aid cause of women's rights

I cannot get Neda out of my mind. Neda Agha Soltan, to be precise. Neda is the woman the world watched die on videotape that was uploaded last weekend to the Internet. She was the woman slaughtered, apparently, by Iranian government gunfire last Saturday during anti-government protests and riots in Tehran.

If you've been online since last weekend, and you've been following the brave Iranian protests against that country's all-but-certainly stolen national elections, you know exactly who Neda is.

According to CNN, Neda was 26, the second of three children born to a middle-class family living outside Tehran. She was studying religion, but friends described her as more spiritual than religious and not involved in politics in any serious way.

CNN described how she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time last weekend, even though she apparently never meant to take part in anti-government activities: "Shaky video captured on a cell phone shows her walking with the man, a teacher of music and philosophy, near an anti-government demonstration.'

"The two are near where protesters were chanting in opposition to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose calls for an end to anti-government demonstrations have sparked defiance across the nation.

"Neda, wearing a baseball cap over a black scarf, a black shirt, blue jeans and tennis shoes, does not appear to be chanting and seems to be observing the demonstration.

"Suddenly, Neda is on the ground — felled by a single gunshot wound to the chest. Several men kneel at her side and place pressure on her chest in an attempt to stop the bleeding."

The video shows her lying in a pool of blood on the ground. Men are screaming at her, one saying, "Neda, be brave." All of a sudden blood gushes out of her mouth and nose, her eyes fall to the side and her body goes limp. She was shot in the heart and died on the spot.

Death, that most private of moments when one should be old and at peace and surrounded by loved ones, takes place instead on concrete and in front of the world. How horrid! Now she's become the most unlikely of political heroines.

Expatriate Iranians around the world demonstrate against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's stolen re-election and bear signs saying, "I am Neda." But it's not at all clear Neda intended to place her life on the line to join them in protest.