Googoosh
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FILE - In this March 21, 2001 file photo Iranian pop star Googoosh performs during a concert in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Googoosh has released a video that addresses homosexual love, a major gesture by one of the country's top cultural figures in exile, causing shockwaves in the Islamic republic. Googoosh sings "don’t tell me to stop loving: you can’t do that and I can’t either." Googoosh was Iran's first pop diva, though the 1979 revolution ended her live singing career for two decades until she immigrated to the West. Navid Akhavan, an Iranian-born German who wrote and directed the video for Googoosh’s song “Behesht” (Heaven), said it has been viewed by more than a million Iranians online or via illegal satellite channels since its Valentine’s Day release. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili, File)
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In this Feb. 2014 photo provided by Navid Akhavan on Tuesday, March 4, 2014, Navid Akhavan poses in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Iranian pop star Googoosh has released a video that addresses homosexual love, a major gesture by one of the country's top cultural figures in exile, causing shockwaves in the Islamic republic. Akhavan, an Iranian-born German who wrote and directed the video for Googoosh's song 'Behesht' (Heaven), said in an interview with The Associated Press it has been viewed by more than a million Iranians online or via illegal satellite channels since its Valentine's Day release. He said reactions have been mostly positive, and it has given gays in Iran an important morale boost. But government-controlled newspapers have condemned the video, a sign that authorities felt compelled to show that they are in touch with popular debate. (AP Photo/Yasmine Asha)
