For the first time in two decades a woman is allowed to sing onstage in Iran. “We cried when she was singing, with a feeling of happiness and sorrow, thinking of all those years that we had been deprived of the art of a woman’s voice,” one Iranian man said. Under their strict interpretation of the Koran, women were prohibited from singing in public, except to a carefully segregated female-only audience. The ayatollahs were afraid the voice of a woman soloist might arouse impure thoughts in men’s minds. – The Globe and Mail (Canada)