It’s one of the sadder viral videos of our times: the murder of Iranian protester Neda Agha-Soltan during post-election protests on the streets of Tehran. When writer Paulo Coelho saw the video, he had an additional shock: one of the two man seen frantically trying to help her was his Iranian publisher, Arash Hejazi, and after ascertaining that Hejazi was safe, he posted the news on his website and word began to spread about this articulate witness.

As an item at Publishing Perspectives notes, Hejazi is the founder of Tehran-based Caravan Books Publishing House, “a publisher of literary fiction, poetry, and serious nonfiction.” He is also a major figure in Iranian publishing as the former managing editor of the country’s publishing trade journal, Sanat-e-Nashr.

But at the scene of the murder, he was more conscious of his previous occupation, as a medical doctor … and of the fact that he couldn’t help the young woman in his arms. Hejazi, who has left Iran and is now in London, describes the scene and its implications in this moving interview with the BBC, and discusses why, having witnessed the killing, he’s afraid to go home to Iran.