Readings & Links

Neda Agha Soltan

Family, Friends Mourn Neda
This profile of Neda features an interview with Hamid Panahi, her music teacher who was with her the day she died. "We were stuck in traffic and we got out and stood to watch, and without her throwing a rock or anything they shot her," he told the Los Angeles Times. "It was just one bullet." (June 23, 2009)

Caspian Makan: "I Cannot Believe It Yet. I Still Think I Will See Neda Again"
This interview with Caspian Makan, Neda's boyfriend, was conducted for this joint FRONTLINE-BBC project. In it, Caspian talks about his more than two months in Iran's notorious Evin Prison, how Neda's grave has become a "pilgrimage site" and his "traumatic" five-day escape from Iran. (The Guardian, Nov. 15, 2009)

Neda's Mother: She Was "Like an Angel"
CNN spoke to Neda's mother for this report. "The night before she was killed on the streets of Tehran, the woman the world would come to know simply as Neda had a dream. 'There was a war going on," she told her mom the next morning, "and I was in the front.'" (Nov. 5, 2009)

Arash Hejazi Weblog
Arash Hejazi, the eyewitness to Neda's death, blogs here.

How Neda Agha Soltan Became the Face of Iran's Struggle
How the footage of Neda's death landed on the Internet and why she became a symbol. (The Guardian, June 22, 2009)

Neda Agha Soltan: Student & Symbol (And Why She Ought to be Both)
"Can one be an icon in death and retain one's humanity?" (Jezebel, June 23, 2009)

The Election & the Protests

Iran: The Tragedy & The Future
"A festive city awash in revelers and agog at the apparent vibrancy of democratic debate in the thirty-year-old Islamic Republic had morphed overnight into a place of smoldering eyes, insidious fear, and rampaging state-licensed thugs," writes Roger Cohen in The New York Review of Books (Aug. 13, 2009). Cohen reported from Iran during the elections and protests; a collection of his acclaimed New York Times columns can be found here.

Iran's Stolen Election
Ahmad Salamatian, a former member of Iran's parliament, writes about Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's role in the crisis: "It stems in large measure from his decision to consolidate his authority, get rid of his enemies -- including those in positions of power -- and block all attempts at reform." (Tehran Bureau, July 7, 2009)

Can Iran Change?
The New Yorker's Jon Lee Anderson wrote this April 2009 profile of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election campaign. "To dismiss Ahmadinejad as a rube is to misunderstand him," he says.

Mir Hossein Mousavi
This Times Topics page includes a bio of Mousavi, as well as links to New York Times and outside coverage. The Times Topics page for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is here.

A Struggle for the Legacy of the Iranian Revolution
The New York Times' Robert F. Worth examines the defining moments and competing interpretations of the 1979 revolution's legacy. (June 20, 2009)

Mapping the Protests
Here, the BBC plotted user-submitted images and videos from the protests onto a map of Tehran.

The Devil Is in the Digits
Two political scientists explain why Iran's official election results just don't add up. (The Washington Post, June 20, 2009)

Iran's Rural Vote and Election Fraud
"Is it possible that rural Iran, where less than 35 percent of the country's population lives, provided Ahmadinejad the 63 percent of the vote he claims to have won?" (Tehran Bureau, June 17, 2009)

Ahmadinejad Won. Get Over It.
Two former Middle East analysts question the degree of fraud in the election, and argue that President Obama needs to accept the results and pursue a dialogue with Ahmadinejad. (Politico, June 15, 2009)

Jailed in Iran, A Reporter's Story
Photojournalist Iason Athanasiadis-Fowden, who was arrested, charged with espionage and jailed for three weeks in Iran during the election, speaks with FRONTLINE/World about his experience. (July 24, 2009)

Iran Students Carry On Protests
Borzou Daragahi writes in the Los Angeles Times that Iran's students have continued protests, but that Western observers are questioning the opposition's power. (Nov. 3, 2009)

Fugitives
In November 2005, The New Yorker's Laura Secor examined the collapse of Iran's reform movement during the two-term presidency of reformist Mohammad Khatami.

Continuing Coverage of Iran

Tehran Bureau
Independent news and analysis from FRONTLINE's editorial partner. A press roundup from sources inside and outside of Iran is posted daily.

The Lede: Iran
New York Times blogger Robert Mackey on the latest news from Iran, including the crackdown on Iranian journalists, the show trials and continuing protests.

Los Angeles Times: Iran
A collection of the paper's reporting in Iran, including its Middle East blog Babylon & Beyond.

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