Neda: Person of the Year

What a pity that Americans have to rely on the British for honest and objective reporting. The American Pravda is so in the pocket for anything liberal that they refuse to cover many stories to protect liberal politicians, especially President Obama. They refuse to hold him accountable for foolish decisions he makes.

But, thanks be to God, we have the British. While Time magazine has named Ben Bernanke the Person of the Year, the Brits have come up with a far more deserving individual, a brave Iranian woman who gave her life in her pursuit of freedom.

Hey, American Pravda, where were you in holding your beloved Obama accountable for his part in discouraging these brave freedom fighters from continuing their efforts to overthrow the Islamic regime in Iran?

Of course, Obama did nothing to encourage these protestors for freedom. He is an enemy of freedom in the United States. Should we expect him to be anything else abroad?

Read from Atlas Shrugs:

UK Times Person of the Year: NEDA
Iranian student protester Neda Soltan is Times Person of the Year



"I applaud The Times (UK) for naming Neda their person of the year. Neda stood up to Islamic oppression and brutality. The media and political elites shun such action and embrace Islamists who encourage the continuing expansionism and supremacism of islam.

Everyone pretended that this historic movement, hundreds of thousands meeting bullets and bricks with sheer determination, was insignificant. Our muhammadan president turned away. Pity because Bush knew this was brewing and encouraged freedom seekers to stand up.

You are either with the Nedas of the world or against us.

Video of Neda here.

Please check all the Atlas coverage of the revolution: Iran: The Revolution and here for the most comprehensive reportage.

The women of the Iranian revolution, that's the Atlas person of the year.

Time magazine named Bernanke? Could they be more out of step in their goose-step?



More on Neda as it was happening here and here and here:


'The young student was appalled, however, by the way that the regime shamelessly rigged the result and reinstalled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ignoring the pleas of her family, she went with her music teacher eight days later to join a huge opposition demonstration in Tehran.

“Even if a bullet goes through my heart it’s not important,” she told Caspian Makan, her fiancé. “What we’re fighting for is more important. When it comes to taking our stolen rights back we should not hesitate. Everyone is responsible. Each person leaves a footprint in this world.”

Ms Soltan, 26, had no idea just how big a footprint she would leave. Hours after leaving home, she was indeed shot, by a government militiaman, as she and other demonstrators chanted: “Death to the dictator.”

Arash Hejazi, a doctor standing near by, remembers her looking down in surprise as blood gushed from her chest. She collapsed. More blood spewed from her mouth. As she lay dying on the pavement, her life ebbing out of her, “I felt she was trying to ask a question. Why?” said Dr Hejazi, who tried to save her life. Why had an election that generated so much excitement ended with a government that claims to champion the highest moral values, the finest Islamic principles, butchering its own youth'?


The article continues:


'Her name was invoked by Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and other world leaders. Outside Iranian embassies huge crowds of protesters staged candlelit vigils, held up her picture, or wore T-shirts proclaiming, “NEDA — Nothing Except Democracy Acceptable”. The internet was flooded with tributes, poems and songs. The exiled son of the Shah of Iran carried her photograph in his chest pocket.'


Brown is a lily-livered milksop. Obama had the audacity to invoke Neda's name while giving tacit support to the mullahcracy. Even now. He did nothing to support the reformers and dissidents. How angry at Obama were the people of Iran? When demonstrating they would direct their chant to Obama, 'you are either with us or with them'. I wonder if they know that's the Bush Doctrine.

Obama's priorities.


'It was not hard to see why Ms Soltan so quickly became the face of the opposition, the Iranian equivalent of the young man who confronted China’s tanks during the Tiananmen Square demonstrations 20 years earlier. She was young and pretty, innocent, brave and modern. She wore make-up beneath her mandatory headscarf, jeans and trainers beneath her long, black coat, and liked to travel.

[...]

In the subsequent weeks any number of leading officials, ayatollahs included, sought to blame her death on British and American intelligence agencies, the opposition, and even the BBC — accusing its soon-to-beexpelled Tehran correspondent, Jon Leyne, of arranging her death so that he could get good pictures.

The regime announced investigations that, to no one’s surprise, exonerated it and all its agents. It managed to coerce Ms Soltan’s music teacher into changing his story, but it failed to do the same with Mr Makan, despite imprisoning him for 65 days — many of them in solitary confinement. Released on bail, he fled the country — making a five-day overland journey to escape.

Dr Hejazi also fled, back to Oxford where he had been taking a postgraduate course in publishing. There he confirmed in an interview in The Times that Ms Soltan was shot by a Basij militiaman on a motorcycle. But the regime still hounds him. It has harassed his family in Tehran, is trying to close his publishing company in the capital, and has accused him of helping British agents to kill Ms Soltan. It stages demonstrations outside the British Embassy demanding his extradition. He would be arrested the moment he returned to Tehran, meaning that he, his wife and infant son are now exiles.

When The Queen’s College, Oxford, established a scholarship in Ms Soltan’s name the regime sent the university a furious letter of complaint.

Back in Tehran, the regime tried to buy off Ms Soltan’s parents by promising them a pension if they agreed that their daughter was a “martyr” killed by foreign agents.

Her mother, Hajar Rostami Motlagh, was outraged. “Neda died for her country, not so that I could get a monthly income from the Martyr Foundation,” she said. “If these officials say Neda was a martyr, why do they keep wiping off the word ‘martyr’ in red which people write on her gravestone? ... Even if they give the world to me I will never accept the offer.”

Soon afterwards, government supporters desecrated her grave.'

Listen to this."


Bush was right. Negotiating with terrorists is "a foolish delusion". But, electing Barack Obama as president was the most foolish move of all, as we will all live to witness.

"When demonstrating they would direct their chant to Obama, 'you are either with us or with them'." Based on his lack of action, Obama was not on the side of the freedom fighters.