Where is Neda? Coverage of Iran in the Western Press

Mona provided a translation of an article from a German newspaper: " 2 Nedas. One dead, one half-dead.

Remember Neda? Neda Soltani? The icon of resistance in Iran last summer?

In fact, she is alive. In Frankfurt/Germany. One thing after the other: yes, a woman died on June 20^th 2009, but her name was Neda Agha-Soltan – not Neda Soltani. She was 26 – not 32. And she was a student at the private Islamic Azad University – not a teacher there. All these differences should have attracted the attention of serious journalists. But who cares in times of hysteria? Instead world media spread the picture of the wrong Neda, who someone downloaded from her facebook-profile during the night to the 21^st of June. The young woman panicked and sent immediately in the morning to Voice of America a second picture of hers in order to prove that she is alive and - guess what? Voice of America published it as another picture of the dead Neda, CBS happily took it on... Everybody ignored the mistake, even though it became even more obvious, after the family of the dead Neda Agha-Soltan handed out pictures of her daughter on June 23^rd. Only on July, 3^rd BBC Online reports the mistake – in a paragraph after the conspiracy theories on Michael Jackson’s death. At that time Neda Soltani, who never wanted to leave Iran, was already in Germany. The Iranian regime had begun to threaten her. It seems they want to use the misunderstanding against the opposition, who’s „Angel“ she became. Neda Soltani nevertheless still tries to prove to the world that she is alive – lately she asked CNN via mail to delete the false picture, after it went again on air. The answer came as an automatically generated response, saying: unfortunately not all requests can be personally answered, signed „CNN, The Most Trusted Name In News“. Neda Soltani, who worked hard in Iran to become a University-teacher and who enjoyed her live with her friends, lives currently as an asylum-seeker from 180 Euro / month in Germany. David Schraven, the reporter who found this out, is a German freelancer. His topic is not politics but energy supply. Therefore he has often to do with oil-rich Iran." Or this.