July 30th marked the fortieth day since Neda Soltan was shot while attending a legal public protest in Tehran, Iran. In Shia Islam the mourning period for a lost loved one ends and culminates on the fortieth day – the “Celleh”. With respect for the murdered girl and adherence to their religious beliefs, thousands of Iranians went to her grave and to the Grand Mosala prayer complex to pay their respects.
The hoodlums that support the Iranian police-state – operating under a shredding banner of an “Islamic Republic” – contravened the consititution of the country and the beliefs of Islam by attacking the mourners with tear gas, bats and guns.
Martin Fletcher at the Times Online summed up the tone of the government’s violent response:
It was marked not by prayers and readings from the Koran but by the desecration of the cemetery and, on the streets of the capital, battles between the regime’s forces and thousands of defiant Iranians who have refused to abandon their dreams of freedom.
The citizens of Iran are getting good at taking the abuse of the government thugs that ‘President’ Ahmadenijad is wielding to intimidate them. Pictures, videos and reports show that “They are holding their own. They’re taking the beatings in their stride”. Mir Hussein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi – both former candidates for President in the recent show election – went to Neda’s grave to show proper respect and were immediately taken away by armed police before they could read the ritual prayers for the young woman.
It was just such action by the Shah of Iran – attacking mourners on the Celleh day of mourning – that escalated into the eventual fall of that government. While the people of Iran and the world mourn the passing of an innocent young lady who was exercising her legal and human rights, another political regime blindly commits the errors of its failed predecessor.
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