Denying Their Grief

The Iranian government, presumably in an effort to end the 'cycle of mourning' I spoke of below, is making it very difficult for families to retrieve the bodies of those that died in the protests. From the Guardian:

one of my relatives has a friend, whose sister works as a nurse in one of the bigger hospitals in Tehran. She told him that the bodies of the approximatley 30 people who were killed during last week's protests are in her hospital, and the regime refuses to give their families access to them, in fear of their names getting out, because that will probably cause a public outrage. Thing is, the families that are waiting ouside the hospitals, don't know if it's their children that are there or not...

Other reports indicate that families are being charged large sums -- between 10m rials and 150m rials (£611 and £9,165) -- to retrieve their dead.

It's a callous, if smart, move by the government, but I think it's futile. People denied an outlet for their grief will simply invest more emotional energy in images like those of Neda.