Googoosh, whose real name is Faegheh Atashin, enrages them. They still consider her decadent. There is no progress for lesbian, gay, and transgender people in Iran, who still face the death penalty under Islamic law. The good news is that outside the country, Iranian queers have been quietly organizing. Homan, the first Iranian lesbian and gay organization was founded in Sweden in 1991 to support Iranian lesbian and gay human rights, and now has several chapters across the U.S. and Europe.
Newspapers continue to be heavily censored, though there is public support for a freer press.
Several reformist candidates won parliamentary elections in February for their promises to overturn restrictive press and social laws. The hard-line judiciary doesn't consider public opinion a plus. They've shut down more than twenty reformist newspapers since April. Reformist legislators who criticized the Ayatollah's intervention in the free press bill, have been accused of treason by hundreds of hard-line protesters demanding the deputies' expulsion. The protesters also say they are willing to martyr themselves for the Ayatollah, though he doesn't seem to need their help.