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Neda Soltani is the ordinary Iranian woman whose image spread last summer in an instant around the world. She's a symbol of the brutality of the Iranian regime and the resilience of Iran's movement for democracy.

She's also still alive.

A woman named Neda did indeed die last summer on the streets of Tehran, gunned down by members of an Iranian militia. Her full name was Neda Agha-Soltan. But mixed in with the tragic footage of that Neda's death, broadcast around the world in a viral video that galvanized world opinion against the Iranian regime, was a compelling Facebook snapshot of a smiling young beauty in a flowered headscarf.

Her name was Neda, too -- Neda Soltani.

What follows is the incredible story of what happened when the age of social media collided with political upheaval in a land behind a curtain -- and how it even forced a 32-year-old graduate student into political exile.

In her small apartment in the city of Offenbach, Germany, where she has been granted political asylum, Neda Soltani is working to piece back together her life. She looks older now than she does in her famous photo. Understandably: The past year has been an ordeal, one that was thrust upon her against her will.