I am Woman, hear my Neda: the new face of Iran

Immortalized after her last moments (left) were recorded and spread online, Neda Agha Soltan has become the face of a movement and, perhaps, of Iran itself. Initially even her name was uncertain, thought to be a symbolic nickname as Neda in Farsi means "calling" or "voice." Information about her life eventually came out, and according to a CNN profile, the Azad Islamic University student enjoyed music and travel, visiting Turkey just months before her death. CNN's source said the girl believed in human rights, explaining why she may have stopped to observe the demonstrations. The picture on the right was provided by Caspian Makan, a photojournalist who identified himself as Neda's boyfriend. (AP Photo)

The Iranian election's fallout continues as protesters march on towards increasingly violent showdowns against a hardline government unrepentant in unleashing its full powers against its own people. In the days leading up to the controversial vote, an unlikely force came to the forefront of the contest: women, led by an aging but charismatic Zahra Rahnavard.

The wife of moderate reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has contested the election as rigged in favor of hardline rival incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had become a driving force in her husband's campaign. She helped to mobilize many Iranian women to come out in support of Mousavi, promising that if he won, their votes would finally count.

Iran's system blends limited electoral democracy, in the form of the nominally-secular parliament and presidency, with a theocratic structure that oversees and, ultimately, dominates all affairs of state. The Supreme Leader leads other clerics in reining in any ambitions of elected lawmakers and officials to ensure they do not stray from the ideals of the Islamic Revolution that for 30 years had been at the heart of the current Islamic Republic. There has often been little place for women in government in this cleric-dominated system, and in social and legal matters Iranian women are often relegated to second-class citizens. 

Rahnavard has urged the women of her country to begin asking for more rights, however, noting that 65 percent of Iranian university students are women, yet - especially during Ahmadinejad's presidency - their career options have been increasingly limited. When the protests against the incumbent's apparent landslide victory began, women young and old have actively participated, and continue to do so. As the government's riot police and feared Basiji militia came out swinging batons, women did not escape the batterings yet continued to protest the next day.

On Saturday June 20, the protest movement gained a new face in the form of a young university student from eastern Tehran, Neda Agha Soltan, whose death by gunshot was captured on video and went viral within hours, if not minutes. The Iranian government has blamed a terrorist group that has been opposing the Islamic regime from Iraq for her death, but it is widely-suspected that a member of the Basiji was responsible for Neda's untimely death.

Her name, meaning "the call/calling" or "the voice" in Farsi, has become symbolic with the protesters' struggle to make sure that their votes were counted. Social networking sites like Twitter had been filled with supportive Tweets commemorating Neda and calling on the Iranians to push on so that she would not have died in vain. More than a dozen others have died in the post-election clashes with government forces, but it was Neda captivated the protesters and sympathizers around the world, and U.S. President Barack Obama called it "heartbreaking" in a press conference. Though the U.S. has been careful about the Iranian election crisis, Obama's statements have escalated with the increasing government crackdown, moving on to officially "condemning" the brutal repression.

Iran is a young country, a sizeable chunk of its population under 30 years old (nearly a quarter under 15 years of age), and women have had little say under the Islamic Republic. It may be for that reason that Neda has been mourned and commemorated by so many. As a university student, she represents Iran's future; as a woman, she represents the disenfranchised. Killed in the middle of a violent government crackdown, she has become a martyr for the movement, and may give the protesters a sort of tragic hope and drive to persevere.

The authorities have reportedly forbidden Neda's family from observing mourning rites, but some clerics within the establishment have demanded that this be allowed. The Shi'ite Muslim calendar of mourning the dead requires rituals on the third, seventh, and climactically 40th day after the date of death; during the 1978-1979 unrest, these were utilized to stage further demonstrations, which resulted in more victims of the regime, which precipitated another cycle of unrest that eventually brought down the authoritarian monarchy. As government brutality continues and escalates, it is likely to produce more fatalities which, in addition to triggering new waves of protest, may chip away at the shaken legitimacy of the Supreme Leader and the theocratic regime he commands.

Rahnavard, meanwhile, has returned to the forefront of galvanizing Mousavi supporters and defying a regime intent on squashing the movement. She has demanded the release of detained protesters, including 25 employees of her husband's newspaper. Rahnavard declared on her husband's website that protests will continue despite the Supreme Leader's continued ban and threats, saying that "it is [her] duty to continue legal protests to preserve Iranian rights."

In 1979, the founder of the Islamic Republic and its first Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, graced the cover of TIME magazine as Man of the Year, the aged bearded cleric becoming Iran's new face. Three decades later, via Twitter and YouTube, Neda Agha Soltan is the new face of Iran, a young woman whose short life was ended by a bullet in the heart. For better or for worse, women are starting to matter in Iran.