"Musavi observers named.
You be the judge!
See pages 7 through 88"

"Musavi observers named.
You be the judge!
See pages 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12."

    The government could publish the names and addresses of all 40,676 Musavi observers (the election authorities issued them ID cards so that have that information) and challenge the public to ask them, when they see them, did they observe the box count(s) and do they agree with the published ballot box counts.
    More excellent reality TV. The crew interviews each observer, and his or her neighbors, work colleagues, to vouch for their identity. -CJ Harwood

*smacks his forehead* Wake up, CJ. You might as well be reading a JK Rowling novel for your information.

    This is the origin of the sniper theory:
    The eye witness said it.
    He was standing 3 feet from Neda when the bullet struck her, he later said, Arash Hejazi, the man helping her music teacher in the video. The video was posted to youtube quoting these as his words: "shot by a basiji member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house" (youtube video v=fmi-LePl894, posted June 20).
    The discussion here was, who did it. Arash did not see the shooter, he was speculating. But this wasn't the usual protest scene. There was no disorder, no public protest, no confrontation, where Neda died. She had left a demonstration on another street and was now on a street, at a place, where there was no conflict (Saturday June 20 2009, 7:35pm).
    So Arash's impression, a rooftop shooter would likely be a cold-blooded assassin, not a basiji in a fear or passion, embroiled in a violent confrontation. As this assassin theory aged, it became ever more doubtful, because there were so few gunshot deaths in the street. An assassin theory posits many more, be it a CIA assassin (intending to stir the crowd to ever greater anger and violence), or a state assassin (intending to terrify the public into submission). Those other victims were at places of violent disorder (so far as we know).
    So setting aside the sniper theory, leaves two other hypotheses: (1) a shooter on the street in a heat of passion or (2) a bullet shot into the sky, far away, a mile or two, now on its downward trajectory.
    Arash left Tehran 4 days later and arrived at London on Wednesday June 24 at 1:54pm, according to Paulo Coelho who posted some emails.
    30 hours later, the BBC posted a 19 minute video, filmed in England, Arash Hejazi, interviewed by Rachel Harvey, "The man who tried to save Neda" (video, 19:01) (BBC News, London, posted Thursday June 25 2009, 18:22pm), excerpts: "'She died in less than a minute'" (video edit, 2:23), "Iran: the death of Neda Agha-Soltan" (audio edit, 6:57) (BBC World Service, Newshour, London, broadcast June 25, 20:05pm GMT, posted June 26, 15:31pm), BBC TV broadcast a 2 minute video edit on its 24 hour news channel (BBC News TV, June 25, 17:45, 19:41), and he was separately interviewed earlier by Eddie Mair (BBC Radio 4, PM, June 25 2009, 5-6pm at 5:18-5:23pm).
    Arash Hejazi. "Neda was standing one meter away from me, I didn't know her, she was one other person in the crowd. ... I heard the sound, I asked my friend, who was standing next to me, 'What was that? was it a gunshot?' ... We heard the sound from in front of us, from where we were standing, we had the impression that it had come from a rooftop."
    He described what the crowd did:
    Arash Hejazi (at 5:58). "But afterwards, some people believed that it was-- They actually took someone, with a basij card, and they said that he was on a motorcycle, coming from the other way, hiding in the corner. Some people shouted, that 'We got him. We caught him.' People went towards him, and they disarmed him, and took out his identity cards, which was a basij member. And he said, he was shouting, because people were furious, and he was shouting, 'I didn't want to kill her, I didn't want to kill her.' ... I was a few meters away, watching, I was shocked, so I didn't participate in anything. I was just looking and watching. And they said, 'We can't even give him back to the police, because they will just let him go away, so what should we do?' .... I heard him. He didn't say, that "I didn't want to-- I wasn't the one who shot her,' or anything. He was just crying, because he was afraid, 'I didn't want to kill her.' So they let him go, because they didn't know what to do with him. They should either harm him, or give him back to the police, none of them would work, in that situation, and they were afraid to expose themselves, to the police. So they just let him go. And they took his identity cards.
    The BBC interviewer did not ask Arash, his opinion about it, the merits of this hypothesis. Obviously, Arash didn't believe it, that this passing basij did it. Arash later repeated his original belief instead, quoted in the youtube posting, that it was a gunshot from a rooftop.
    The wound he described is consistent with a bullet on a downward trajectory, and inconsistent with a bullet fired from nearby, on the street.
    There was no exit wound. This suggests a bullet traveling much slower than its muzzle velocity (decayed by air drag and also by gravity, if a shot in the air). "I can verify that the bullet came from in front and it didn't leave from her back, so there were no bullets--, bullet wounds--, exit points from her back" (at 4:00).
    The blood from her mouth and nose came from a lung puncture, he posits, and the blood gushing from her chest, and her quick death, a puncture of her aorta. Both these structures, I presume, are below the entry wound ("in the chest, below her neck," where he was pressing in the video). If so, then she would have to be bending over at the waist, for a street level shot to travel that path.
    The BBC interviewer did not ask Arash, his opinion about it, could it be a shot into the sky, from far away, a few streets away, a mile or two away.
    The BBC interviewer did not ask Arash, about it, why did he believe the gunshot came from a rooftop, and not closer, from street level. He might have mentioned this: it sounded further away, he saw no basiji on the street, the crowd did not react as if the shooter was nearby, or among them, on the street, the trajectory of the bullet and no exit wound.
    The context of this question (who shot Neda) is the driving, relentless, campaign -- the BBC a leader of it -- to demonize Iran, as a violent criminal, despotic, evil, empire, a regime of liars and gangsters, fit to assassinate and bomb.
    Here, John Simpson says a regime thug did it, maliciously, wilfully, executed Neda. But John Simpson knew, when he said it, that he did not know it to be true, what he confidently asserted to be an unassailable fact:
    John Simpson. "A few streets away when Neda Soltan -- the young woman whose face has since become known throughout the world -- was shot dead, by one of the government's thugs." (audio 29:00 at 23:00) (BBC Radio 4, The Report, June 25 2009, 8pm).
    It's surely so that a basiji did it, fired the shot which killed Neda.
    Arash Hejazi. "She was shot by a basiji member, which are the armed people. Yes, the anti-riot police never use firing guns, they never, they just use anti-rioting tools, and tear gases. But the basij is armed, is an armed force, and they don't follow the rules that are set for the police. I don't-- The police is not shooting people. These people are." (BBC video, 19:01 at 18:15).
    But John Simpson's description is incompatible with a shot fired into the sky, by a basiji, from where he was, for example, John Simpson, reporting the sound of gun shots, a few streets away from Neda, at the same time she died. That shot could be negligent, it could be reckless (if the shooter was not defending his life or the lives of others), but it could not be malicious, wilful, as John Simpson said it was, by the words he chose, a heartless murder, by a government thug.
    It was a tragedy, not murder, if it was a shot into the sky, a tragedy, from public disorder, incited, aided and abetted, by bold lies, by untrue, factual assertions, broadcast by the BBC and by it's U.S. partner in crime, RFE/RL: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, its Radio Farda, and Voice of America, in service of an agenda, selling a dishonest narrative, instead of using an honest narrative as a tool to explain the actual facts.
    Neda died for a single reason. She was lied to. She believed her vote was not counted. That's why she was on the street. That's what she said to her fiancé, Caspian Makan.
    That was 8 days after the election. Mousavi and his backer Rafsanjani, did they know, by that time, that the ballot count was honest? I don't know, the box counts were published later than that (I believe), but they did know this, just like the preacher said, at Friday prayers, there was a legal procedure by which they could audit the ballot counts of any ballot boxes they chose, a transparent balloting system, with ballots, stubs, signed count forms, signed sealed and delivered.
    Instead of doing what the preacher said, proving their case, with their own observers, checking ballot box counts with their observers, recounting ballots, if they reported a different figure, instead of that peaceable method of settling all questions, they chose instead to incite the crowd to protest some more, the next day, Saturday, when Neda died.
    That's about as despicable as it gets, dishonest conduct by Mousavi and Rafsanjani. They have Neda's blood on their hands, just like the preacher predicted.
    The basiji are an intolerable affront to the rule of law, their apparent license to do as they please. So too, Iran's vague, standardless, censorship decree, and the faceless, nameless bureaucrats who administer it (as Arash Hejazi, a book publisher, has explained in his writings), and some of it's criminal laws, equally a license to rule by whim, vague language which makes most citizens criminals, a duplicate of Nazi Germany laws, including criminalizing free speech, criticizing leaders.
    But these are political issues Iranian leaders should be encouraged, in good faith, directly, to tackle, not by provoking riots, by lying that an election was rigged, an election the contenders had the means (observers) and opportunity to challenge and did not.
    Here's the guardian council's 90 page report (July 16 2009), on the election complaints, and how they dealt with them. I can't read it, maybe somebody will eventually translate it, honestly. - CJ Harwood

So Rafsanjhani spoke today. Meaningful or meaningless?

Is he a day late and a dollar short with his public support for the protestors? Or was his political capital spent on securing behind the scene's support in the various council's (experts, etc.)

There is video of a Basiji shooting into an unarmed crowd from a rooftop, killing one and wounding many, and the crowd subsequently setting the Basiji stronghold on fire. Your hypothesis, clearly aimed at vindicating the Iranian regime of any guilt, is as good as a JK Rowling fantasy. The Basiji clearly shot Neda in the same way the last Basiji shot the man in the unarmed crowd aforementioned.

As for the short swords, I am sorry that you are not, in any way, knowledgeable about Iran beyond what you read on the Internet. It would behoove you to learn at least a few words of Farsi and to read the eye witness reports all over Twitter. Many pictures emerged of Basiji with batons, some electric, and of the police and Basiji with their state equipped short sword (called the Qame). It's been a staple of the state military and paramilitary since the time of the Qajar dynasty.

As far as anonymity goes, I have been a staple of this blog for nearly 2.5 years now. You suddenly sprung up out of nowhere with ridiculous claims that the Iranian regime is somehow incapable of lying to its own people and more likely to be innocent in this scenario than guilty. Internet anonymity is no strange thing, particularly in a blog where controversial issues are discussed.

By the same logic you applied, I don't accept that you are a 14th generation Virginian. And if you are, it makes sense: someone in Nashville, Tennessee, who likely does not know more than one or two Iranians, and speaks not a lick of Farsi, having never really understood the country's dynamics (as evidenced in your postings) would babble the garbage you post here regularly within this blog entry. You really should lift your veil of ignorance and read more of the primary source. I suggest Rosetta Stone in Farsi as a start.

http://aminehpakravan.blogspot.com/