Her name was Neda

Neda Agha Soltan

She was standing on the street with her father music professor. They were on Karekar Avenue, at the corner crossing Khosravi Street and Salehi Street in Tehran. I don't know why they were there. Maybe they were protesting against the government, or maybe they were just curious, wondering what was going on. Or maybe they lived there.

But because they were out in the street after warnings had been issued, someone shot her.

The bullet hit her in the chest. According to a doctor who was at the scene, it went straight to her heart.

The video catches her falling. Someone - maybe her father, maybe someone from the crowd - pulls her off the curb and eases her down to lie flat on the pavement. You can see her face, her mouth show a feeling - what is this, what has happened to me? Her rescuers' hands press and push onto her chest, to close her wound, or to resuscitate her.

As the video plays, she opens her mouth and gasps, then her eyes glance toward the camera. She knows we see her.

As the camera rolls, blood pours from her mouth - indicating the terrible injuries to her heart and lungs. Her rescuers' bodies fill the frame as they bend to save her, then the camera focuses on her face again. Blood flows like paint from her mouth, then her nose, down both sides of her face to the pavement beneath her. Blood collects into the hollow of her left eye, filling the socket. Her right eye, vacant yet pure, stares at the sky, her shaped eyebrow above, her mouth so perfect, so beautiful except for the blood. Now she is gone, she has passed.

It's on the video.

She was a real person, just like me, just like you. Her name was Neda Agha Soltan. Don't forget her.

UPDATE: The video links are no longer valid. You can probably find a video on the internet if you search. I've decided I can't watch footage of her death anymore. I've posted a photo of Neda as she was when she was alive. Although I would like to remove the photo of her death, I can't. It's what we have to remember.