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Oh. I think there is a very significant difference beween murder and repression behind closed doors, and shooting a woman dead in the street in full public view.
I am aware of the pop-cult history in Iran. Every once in awhile I've touch down from the clouds and watched Iranian videos, looked at paintings, watched some dance performances, etc. And it was interesting to see that women were full participants in various arts.
This kind of art participation forms a social metaphor, for full public participation in society at large. There was a long history in the US over the status of women writers and painters, long before there was an overt women's movement. Same thing for African American arts, etc. So some kind of struggle goes on in cultural spaces, before the struggle becomes public political space, or something like that.
The arts are an interesting ground of conflict in a predominantely Muslim country, because of the traditional ban on iconography, especially of the human body. The traditional dancing styles in Arab cultures certainly bring that conflict into focus. Aljazeera has a nice running feature on the arts. The most interesting items come from the Arab and Muslim world. What it looks like to me is there is a general kind of new energy in the arts, especially the non-commerical varieties.
What is funny and I mean funny, is the first targets of repression are the lowly `arts', then they go after to the communists, and then everybody else they don't like, whoever `they' are. You can see this logic operating in Iran, if you remmeber that dress style is an art form.
CG