Friends: Iran's protest icon not activist

TEHRAN, June 23 (UPI) -- The woman known to the world as "Neda," whose death in a Tehran street was captured on video and sent around the world, was not an activist, friends said.

Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, was shot dead Saturday during clashes between pro-government militias and demonstrators protesting the disputed June 12 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Cell phone footage of her bleeding in the street as companions try to staunch the blood flow from her chest turned the woman into an international symbol of the protest.

Witnesses said the shooter was not a police officer but belonged to a group of plainclothes security officials or militiamen in the area, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.

Friends remember Agha-Soltan not as an activist but as a woman who loved music and travel, and was studying to be a tour guide, the Times said.

Agha-Soltan was loyal to the country's Islamic roots and traditions, but had a curiosity regarding the world beyond Iran's borders, friends told the Times as they waited for her funeral and burial.

She began attending the protests because she was outraged by the election results that declared Ahmadinejad the landslide winner over his nearest challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, friends said.

"She was a person full of joy," music teacher and friend Hamid Panahi told the Times. "She was a beam of light. I'm so sorry. I was so hopeful for this woman."