Summary
These videos show a female protester just after she was run over by a car and then her body being rejected by a medical center in Tehran on December 27. Her corpse is crammed onto the back seats of a silver car and driven away.
The videos
Video 1: The body is brought out of the medical center on a stretcher:
Video 2: The face of the dead protester is glimpsed as she is placed in the car:
Video 3: The same scene is filmed from an upstairs window across the street:
Video 4: Most probably showing the same protester just after she was run over by a car.
The circumstances
Frame 1 (0:12) from video 1 shows a sign over the building's entrance. It reads, 'Ammar Day-and-Night Medical Center:'
Ammar is an emergency center connected to the Tehran municipality. It is featured among the network of medical centers of the Sherkateh Shahreh Salem Tehran (Healthy City Company of Tehran), overseen by Tehran City Hall. Ammar medical center is marked with a red arrow in the screen capture below:
Ammar medical center is situated at 419, Behboudi Street, Tehran:
View Ammar medical center, Tehran in a larger map
The date of the videos is almost definitely Ashura, December 27, 2009. The Iranian opposition took advantage of the commemoration of the 7th-Century martyrdom of Imam Hossein to stage protest rallies. Footage of the rallies and the violence of the security forces is widely available on YouTube. At the 2:16 mark on video 3, we hear the cameraman say, 'It took 1,400 years for us to see the real Ashura!' At the 2:37 mark, the crowd begins chanting 'Mourning, mourning, today is a day of mourning,' before loudly shouting, 'Death to the dictator!'
In a separate confirmation of this information, the following text appeared on forums and YouTube after video 2 was posted:
On Ashura day, I had to go towards Behboudi Street. It was around 1 PM, if I'm not mistaken. I saw a black Sonata drive quickly up Behboudi from Azadi Street (NB One of the protest sites in Tehran) and heard a woman screaming. I saw it go towards Ammar Yasser medical center. I made my way over there and saw them bringing a woman out of the car. They said that a police van had run over her on Azadi Street. Then the Sonata left. They brought a stretcher out of the medical center and took the body in. It was clear that she was dead because her limbs were broken and she wasn't moving. They said that she was a 37- or 38-year-old woman and that no one was accompanying her. This is the same woman who was among the martyrs of Ashura and who has not been identified yet. I saw her face. I'm even in the images that you posted. They brought the body out five minutes later and said stop a car and take her to the hospital. They said that they couldn't keep her. We said, Don't you have an ambulance? I think they lied and said no. Finally, a silver Samand (NB Automobile made by Iran Khodro), you can see it in the video, accepted to take her. They managed with great difficulty to put the body in the car and take it away.
A statement released by the Islamic Republic's police last week confirmed that 8 individuals had died during the protests on Ashura day. The police added that two dead individuals, a 31-year-old man and a 43-year-old woman, had yet to be identified. The official statement claimed that the woman had 'either fallen off a bridge or had an accident.'
Video 4, which was posted days after the others, almost definitely shows the same woman, whose corpse was rejected by the medical center, just after she was run over by a police vehicle.
The following is a translation of the comments on the video:
Man: Take her over there. There's a van.
Woman: (inaudible) I don't know her. (NB Corresponds to the account above which states that the woman was not accompanied by anyone.)
Man: You see what these sons of whores are like?
Man: Cover her. What did they do to her?
Man: He ran over her with two wheels, the bastard!
Man: Let's take her before they come back.
Man: She's crushed and you're bringing water? Bring a car and take her away.
Man: Pick her up.
Woman: Wrap her in her coat and pick her up.
Man: Don't move her. She might have broken bones all over. Miss, I'm a doctor. Don't move her.
A comparison between the face of the dead protester in video 2 (frame 2, below) and the partially covered face of the injured protester in video 4 (frames 3-5, below) is inconclusive, although the hair color and thin eyebrows seem to match. However we catch a fleeting glimpse of the dead woman's striped green shirt in video 2 (frame 6, below)and this also matches the shirt of the injured protester leading this observer to conclude that the two videos almost certainly are of the same woman:
Footage of two police vehicles plowing through protesters and killing at least one person on Vali Asr Square has received broad media attention:
However, the woman shown in videos 1 to 4 was killed kilometers to the west of Vali Asr Square. This seems to indicate that far from being an accident or the work of zealous renegades, running over protesters has become the newest officially sanctioned tactic of security forces.
Posts
Outstanding video interpretation. Great use of maps and frame captures. I'm inclined to follow your excellent example and try to incorporate these features into my own future video interpretations.
ReplyDeleteI don't share your conclusion of this kind of thing being officially sanctioned. The video where two NAJA vehicles run over a body in the street is actually one of several videos available from the same incident, which includes the storming, looting and burning of a police station and the beating of at least two policemen by protesters. The run-over is part of that entire two-sided brawl taking place near Vali Asr Sq. (I think it was).
This second incident could also be explained as either an accident or a desperate attempt by police officers to evade an angry mob intent on seizing the officers and subjecting them to severe beating (for which there are several videos showing such things happenings during Ashura).
Again, great work, homylafayette. This is among the best video interpretation/analysis anywhere.
It's by far better than your pseudo analysis of the anti-riot measures of Ashura, Mark.
ReplyDeleteMark, would you please do us the favor and just keep your "analyses" to your self?
We don't need wise asses like you, who pretend to be neutral but clearly cannot distinguish between an angry mob and oppressed people that fight back in an act of (extended) self defense.
Down with the most notorious faschist regim of vampire khamenei and antarinejad. No one will ever forget the tortures and murders of this anti human and anti freedom dictators. Long live the brave and helpless people of Persia fighting for their most basic human right. In memory of all men and women who are killed every day by khamenei regim in iran. May god bring more power to iraninans and whoever is against the dirty blood sucking murders regim. Hitler did not do what this filthy animals are doing to its own people. Death to islamic republic or iran.
ReplyDeleteDOWN WITH KHAMENEI AND AHAMDINEJAD THE TWO MOST EVIL FACES OF VAMPIRES DICTATING LIVES OF INNOCENT IRANIANS. DOWN TO FASCHISTS DOWN TO THIS BLOODY ISLAM DOWN TO BASIJI DOWN TO MULLAH DOWN TO HEZBOLLAH DOWN TO WHOEVER KILLS LIBERATING BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF OUR COUNTRY. PEOPLE OF IRAN STAND TOGETHER AS SATAN IS DEAD AND VICTORY IS CLOSER THAN EVER.......YOU CAN SMELL IT FROM THE BLOOD BATH OF YOUR YOUNG AND INNOCENT....MAY GOD GIVE YOU THE STRENGHT AND POWER TO FIGHT THESE MOST BARBARIC FILTHY ANIMALS.........
ReplyDeleteKHAMENEI IS THE BLOOD SUCKING ZAHAAK IN THIS CENTURY. BRAVE IRANIANS FIGHTING WITH THEIR BLOOD AGAINST THE EVIL FORCES OF THIS FASCIST REGIM WILL BE FREE AGAIN. IRAN WILL BE A FREE LAND, WITHOUT THE LIES, TORTURES, DECEPTIONS, CORRUPTION AND KILLINGS OF THESE DIRTY MULLAHS. GOD BLESS BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN OF IRAN. DOWN WITH ZAHAAK COUNTING HIS LAST FILTHY BREATH. IN MEMORY OF ALL THOSE MARTYRED BY ISLAMIC REGIM.
ReplyDeleteAs a Christian, I pray that all Iranians will be free, politically and spiritually.
ReplyDeleteThe stretch marks on this poor woman's belly indicate she was probably a mother... I feel terrible for her family and pray her children can heal from this and rise up against the regime that caused her death.
ReplyDeleteThe Health Videos. Medical Videos. Doctor Videos. Physician Videos. Video MD Free Health Education Videos and healthcare information on VideoMD is for educational purposes only.
ReplyDelete