Recently, I spoke with Caspian Makan, fiancée of Neda Aghasoltan, who died in the democracy protests following last summer's controversial elections in Iran. Mr. Makan has since received asylum in Canada and has joined the country's large expatriate Persian community. In January, the Times of London reported that supporters of Mahmoud Ahmedemijad had defaced Neda's grave for a second time.
Yesterday, on the first anniversary of her death, CNN featured a video about the life and death of Neda Aghasoltan.
Thank you for speaking with me, Mr. Makan, Could you tell me how Neda Aghasoltan's death affected your political views?
Following Neda's death, I realized that the regime of Islamic dictatorship in Iran was built entirely on lies and human blood.
For more than 30 years, Iran's leaders have deprived women and young people of their basic human rights through inhuman practices in the name of religion. These crimes include imprisonment, torture, rape, and the murder of thousands buried in unknown cemeteries due to their ideologies and beliefs.
Why did you come to Canada?
In Iran, the authoritarian Islamic regime has always used any method available to ensure its survival and maintain its advantage. The regime conceals its crimes using intense forms of censorship. It arrests foreign and native journalists and Iranian intellectuals like professors, students, artists, lawyers, and even those who work within its system.
What has happened in Iran under the current regime?
The result...has been to transform Iran, a country with a rich history, into a prison. But all of these crimes are only the beginning for the leaders of the Islamic regime in Iran. In order to extend their power, they collaborate with similar regimes in international terrorist attacks that violate the security of the region.
How do these changes affect the region?
As the international ambitions of Iran's regime grow, it becomes increasingly apparent that the problem of the Iranian people has become an international problem requiring the help and support of freedom loving people everywhere.
And why are these regional changes important to people around the world?
The emancipation of Iranians from... despotism is essential to the freedom, peace, and stability of all people around the world. Last year, the world watched the murder of defenseless people in Iran. In the midst of this slaughter and suppression, Neda Aghasoltan's death revealed the true face of the Islamic regime's fundamental lack of respect for human rights and freedoms.
Why do you think Neda Aghasoltan become a international symbol of Iran's desire for democracy?
Courageously last summer, Neda stepped forward to request her freedom. Tragically, she paid with her life. Her sacrifice is a symbol of what all of the victims of the Iranian uprising have given in their fight against an oppressive regime.
How can we help you and the cause of democracy in Iran?
To remember Neda's bravery I call for an international day of mourning to be established. I would ask everyone who reads this to please help me turn June 20th into, International Neda Day.
On this day, Iranians and freedom-loving people everywhere can stand united in their desire to abolish any and all inhuman governments. It will be an annual reminder for people everywhere to reflect on the need for the blessing of security, equality and freedom for every human being on the planet.
It is a call, in Neda's memory, for an end to killing, political murders, imprisonments and executions. -Our world needs just such a 'holy-day'.
Thank you, very, very much Mr. Makan.
UPDATE: Since publishing this post, I have had several fruitful exchanges, by telephone and online, with Iason Athanasiadis. Athanasiadis stands by his assessment of Caspian Makan; I stand by mine.
OKAY, where do I (Giles Slade) stand?
The man I spoke with knew NEDA. He may have exaggerated his relationship with her in order to leave Iran, I do not know... I do not think NEDA herself would object to how anyone cheated or lied to leave that brutal regime.
Moreover, nothing that Mr. Makan NOW says offends her memory. I think democracy never comes cheaply or easily and that it is best served by celebrating the life of a beautiful young woman who died in a conflict over fair elections. It is easy to forget the blessing that we have. In North America we are blessed with free speech, and a free Internet. Elsewhere, there are still martyrs to the rights and privileges our ancestors fought to win. I leave all this controversy posted. I still think International Neda Day is a brilliant, useful and necessary idea. I won't quickly point the finger at anyone who has lived under an oppressive regime and accuse them of hypocrisy.
It’s hard to see why this should matter. But for what it’s worth, my impression of Makan does not match that of Athanasiadis — or at least the revised impression Athanasiadis formed five months after meeting and writing positively about him. Makan and I did not conduct our interview in a “gleaming TV studio,” but in a mutual acquaintance’s office. Makan drove a long way to get there. He did not seem “smug as a bug in a rug” to me. He looked sad. The dark circles under his eyes that were visible in the first television interview he gave upon fleeing Iran are still there.
What no one can dispute is that Makan condemned the Iranian government for murdering Agha-Soltan when it would have been safer to stay silent. He was jailed as a result. Many of those close to Agha-Soltan came under enormous pressure to deny what they saw with their own eyes and absolve the government of responsibility for Agha-Soltan’s death. At least one man, her friend and music teacher Hamid Panahi, who was at her side when she died, broke and did so. Makan did not. He took a stand against a regime whose agents shoot dead innocent civilians in the street. He has suffered more than he has gained as a result.
Makan was NOT Neda's fiancee. They dated briefly and then they parted ways. He has used her ever since her death as a political tool for his own personal gains. You can read a fully account from someone's who's met and talked to this guy up close:
http://www.ipouya.com/?p=489
It’s curious why Athanasiadis didn’t pass on these observations in November, when he had his international scoop. He already would have heard at least one of Makan’s stories that caused Athanasiadis to consider him untrustworthy — that Makan viewed and took photos of Iranian security forces shooting protesters from helicopters. Athanasiadis also says Makan claimed the border between Iran and Turkey was rife with conflict between Turkish troops and Kurdish rebels when he was smuggled across it, and that he, Athanasiadis, investigated and found this was not the case. And Athanasiadis disputes the very nature of Makan’s relationship with Neda Agha-Soltan, reporting that she had left him at the time of her death.
Makan did not make the same claims about helicopter-borne gunmen or crossing the border in the midst of firefights to me. As for Makan and Agha-Soltan’s relationship, Agha-Soltan’s mother told the BBC’s Persian language service that the two would have been married if her daughter hadn’t been murdered. Much of Athanasiadis’s attack on Makan, however, is not about his credibility, but his character. Athanasiadis objects to the suits Makan wears; his habit of exaggerating his ability to speak English; even the photos Makan posts of himself on Facebook.
Petrou's account is called 'In Defense of Caspian Makan'. It can be found at the following url
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/06/21/in-defence-of-caspian-makan/
Here it is in its entirety:
In Defence of Caspian Makan (Part 1)
by Michael Petrou on Monday, June 21, 2010 1:08pm - 0 Comments
Caspian Makan, fiancé of the murdered Iranian protester Neda Agha-Soltan, has been the target of a lot of criticism and outright hostility. Much of it followed his trip earlier this year to Israel — something he told me he did to show Israelis only Iran’s government wants war, and to break the Islamic Republic’s ultimate taboo by visiting its favourite scapegoat.
Iason Athanasiadis, whose criticism is not based on Makan’s Israel trip, is particularly scornful, and was cited by readers who commented on my story in this week’s magazine. Athanasiadis was the first reporter to interview Makan last November, after Makan fled Iran for Turkey. Then, Athanasiadis described their interview as “moving” and didn’t question Makan’s credibility. Now he says Makan is an effete and narcissistic liar.
Watch the documentary "For Neda".......absolutely shocking about the horror that is the Islamic Republic of Iran today.
This man was never Neda's serious boyfriend, never mind her fiancee.
He's an opportunist of the worst kind.
Regardless of what the truth may be, a girl is dead, and the drumbeat of war rolls on.
Probably not, because he doesn't spin a tale that fits with the American prejudices.
BTW, has anyone asked Caspian to explain how the tens of thousands of polling station monitors who supported Mousavi managed to not notice the election being rigged while they sat there watching the empty boxes fill up with votes, then watched them get counted, then signed off on those counts? (Seeing as the poll by poll numbers matched those count sheets, as well as what the American signal intelligence services heard being phoned, texted, and emailed in, it can't have happened after that)
'Setting The Record Straight on Caspian Makan', by Iason Athanasiadis in the Global Post:
http://www.globalpost.com/notebook/afghanistan/100404/caspian-makan””