BERLIN — An Iranian woman mistaken for Neda Agha-Soltan, who was killed during protests against her country's disputed elections, is seeking asylum in Germany, a newspaper reported Friday.
Photos of the 32-year-old Neda Soltani, an English literature teacher at the university of Tehran, were published around the world when media confused her with Agha-Soltan, who was shot during a June 20 demonstration.
The shocking images of her bleeding to death on a Tehran street were broadcast on the Internet and seen around the world.
Agha-Soltan, 26, became a symbol of the resistance to the Iranian clampdown on protests, earning her the title of "person of the year" from Britain's Times newspaper as a "global symbol of opposition to tyranny."
But several media took a picture of Soltani from her Facebook page and mistakenly used it to illustrate Agha-Soltan. Within days, the photo was printed on t-shirts, posters and in newspapers around the world.
Soltani, who was not politically active, tried in vain to alert the media to their mistake, and left Iran on July 2 after receiving threats from the regime, the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung wrote Friday.
"Even today in Germany, she does not want to say by whom and how she was threatened due to concerns for her family," the paper wrote.
The article has few quotations from the young woman and does not indicate clearly where she is living in Germany, mentioning only a meeting near Frankfurt, western Germany and a shelter for asylum-seekers where she was staying.
I do not think that one should blame the media or the protesters, but I do think that the Iranian government is to blame for ruining this woman's life. Threatening her just because other people made a mistake is simply wrong.
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I do not think that one should blame the media or the protesters, but I do think that the Iranian government is to blame for ruining this woman's life. Threatening her just because other people made a mistake is simply wrong.
What do you expect from such a regime? Sympathy? She is a woman, so she has no rights in Iran. I'll be really surprised if she survives. Tyrannical regimes have no sympathy and such an Islamic regime cares not for women who might stand in their way.
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