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International news from Iran gave people all over the world reason to question the stability of the Iranian Shiite theocracy, when tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in the city of Tehran. The protests were massive, but short lived. In little more than week, the Iranian riot police, security forces, Basij and Revolutionary Guards, shut down the voice of protest with the blessing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The world community watches silently.

Hope for freedom and democracy ran high in Iran on the day of the Iranian presidential election of June 12, 2009. Ahmadinejad won reelection with more than 62 percent of the vote. The next day Tehran's streets were overflowing with protesters crying "election fraud." Today the protests have been silenced and the world community retreated to the sidelines.

Immediately after the election results were announced on June 13th, hordes of Iranian citizens in Tehran took to the street in protest. They twittered on cell phones sending the messages over the Internet, giving the world an eyewitness account of protesting in Tehran. A sense of elation was evident in the early hours of the protest movement but soon turned to horror as they were met by Iranian security forces and Basij volunteer militia.

Students at Tehran University staged a protest on June 14th but riot police dispersed them. The university was visited in the early hours of June 15th and computers were smashed, dorms trashed and students were arrested. Stories coming through on the Internet telling horrific tales of beatings and rape of some of the men and women who were released from jail.

A young woman, Neda, became the international symbol for the protests. Neda Agha-Soltan was shot in central Tehran. Within hours the video of her death went viral over the Internet and she quickly became an international martyr. Ironically, Neda was not part of the protest demonstrators according to news reports. She had been delayed in traffic and stepped out of the car for some air. Within minutes Neda was killed and her death was captured by (presumably) a cell or smartphone and transmitted to Twitter.

Though Neda's death stirred deep passions, the street protests were crushed by the authorities on Khamenei orders. Police and security forces continue to work diligently seeking information and detaining those who are believed to have been a part of the uprising. Breaking the back of the protest was carried out with systematic raids and arrests and breaking

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