Iran bans public mourning of riot victims

Iranian authorities have found another way to combat the opposition movement demonstrating against the contested presidential elections, besides making threats and firing live rounds at them. All mosques in Tehran have been prohibited from holding memorials or publicly mourning the deaths of the riot victims, it emerged on Monday. According to official count in Tehran, 17 people have been killed in more than a week of demonstrations. Demonstrators have been gathering almost daily in Tehran since authorities said incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had easily defeated challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi in the June 12 vote. An amateur video released on Saturday capturing the violent death of a young woman has become the iconic image of the country's opposition movement and unleashed a flood of outrage at the regime's crackdown. The footage, less than a minute long, appears to capture 27-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan's lying in the street, blood streaming from her nose and mouth moments after she was shot at a protest. The image is a powerful example of citizens' ability to document events inside Iran despite government restrictions on foreign media and Internet and phone lines. Her fiance, Caspian Makan, told BBC Persian TV about the circumstances of Neda's death, saying that "She was near the area, a few streets away, from where the main protests were taking place, near the Amir-Abad area. She was with her music teacher, sitting in a car and stuck in traffic." "The authorities are aware that everybody in Iran and throughout the whole world knows about her story. So that's why they didn't want a memorial service. They were afraid that lots people could turn up at the event. So as things stand now, we are not allowed to hold any gatherings to remember Neda," he added. The limits imposed amid the unrest over the disputed June 12 election make details of the woman's life and events immediately preceding her apparent death difficult to confirm. But clips of the woman being called Neda are among the most viewed items on YouTube - with untold numbers of people passing along the amateur videos through social networks and watching them on television. The images entered wide circulation Saturday when two distinct videos purporting to show her death appeared separately on YouTube and Facebook. They show people trying desperately to treat the woman, who is clad in blue jeans, white sneakers, a black jacket and the headscarf required by Iran's Islamic dress code. Her eyes roll back and blood squirts from her nose, pouring across her face as those trying to help her scream. "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, don't be afraid, Neda dear, don't be afraid," a white-haired man in a striped shirt repeats throughout the longer of the videos, his voice escalating throughout. People posting the video say the woman was shot by a member of the pro-government Basij militia. That information could not be independently verified: Reporters for foreign news organizations have been barred from reporting on the streets of Tehran, and the Iranian government has not released any information about her death. (07,46)