Changing Iran

There's a good piece up from the BBC's former correspondent in Iran.

The other night I was at a private party and two young Iranian women performed a song about a bird. It was indescribably sad and beautiful and had many of the women in the audience in tears.

Women are not allowed to sing in public in Iran - it is considered un-Islamic for men to hear them.

These women - who in today's Iran can only perform in houses of friends - sang about a bird, a crane, whose wings had been clipped and whose mouth had been covered.

It was a poetic symbol of censorship and the restrictions imposed on women.

Telling that the regime of Khatami- which she recognises as being anything other than liberal- is currently seen as a kind of golden age in Iran.