Iran: Death of exiled singer Marjan sparks controversy
The death of exiled Iranian actress and singer Marjan has sparked controversy in her home country, with conservative pressure forcing some famous Iranians to retract their condolences.
Shahla Safi Zamir, better known by her stage name Marjan, died aged 71 in a Los Angeles hospital on 6 June, the Boston Globe reported, citing a statement by the outlawed opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).
After starting in Iranian cinema, Marjan became a pop singer famous for her disco hit Kavire Del (Desert of the Heart), before the Islamic Revolution of 1979 stopped her career, AFP said.
Arrested in 1982 for her association with political dissidents, Marjan spent two years in prison, including almost nine months in solitary confinement. She was held with other women and later highlighted the plight of female prisoners and artists in Iran, the Washington Post said in her obituary.
Marjan fled Iran in 2001 for Dubai and was later granted asylum with her husband in the United States, where they settled in Los Angeles.
She rarely performed commercial concerts, preferring to appear at rallies of the NCRI and other dissident groups in the United States and Albania, home to a large community of Iranian exiles, according to the Post.
Several celebrities in Iran paid homage to her, including film director Tahmineh Milani, who offered condolences "to the daughter and family of Marjan".
Popular ex-footballer Ali Karimi published a Marjan song on his Instagram page.
These messages were aggressively attacked by conservatives including the Raja News website, which published an article accusing celebrities of encouraging people "to admire hypocrites", or monafeghin in Persian.
Monafeghin is a term used in Iran to refer to the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, an exiled opposition group it considers a "terrorist" cult led by Maryam Rajavi.
Rajavi, who is also head of the NCRI, paid her respects to Marjan and her "songs of freedom".
She also claimed that the actress had joined the People's Mujahedin after "long and painful years of incarceration" in Iran.
Following the attacks by conservatives, several of the targeted personalities accused the People's Mujahedin of appropriating their condolences for propaganda purposes.
The condolences were not "proof of any political alignment with Rajavi's positions", Milani said on Instagram.
The director, who is also a feminist activist, said she was unaware Marjan was sympathetic to the People's Mujahedin.
"I have never been a member of any party," actor Ashkan Khatibi wrote on Instagram, accusing the People's Mujahedin of exploiting the condolences of artists. "Shame on you," he wrote.
On Sunday, the conservative newspaper Kayhan wrote that it regretted "censorship" prevented Iranian media from reporting on these messages of "condemnation" of the People's Mujahedin.
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