Marjan (singer)

She fled Iran for Dubai in 2001 and eventually moved on to the United States, where she lived in Los Angeles, California until her death due to complications from surgery on 5 June 2020.

On 6 June 2020, following an operation, Marjan died due to a cardiac arrest. She spent the last years of her life in Los Angeles.

After leaving Iran, Marjan became an activist against the Iranian government and offered her support for of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran. "I decided to fight because I have a right to live freely in my own country," She said in an interview on 3 June 2015.

Her song, "Kavir-e Del", has been reissued in compilations such as Pomegranates - Persian Pop, Funk, Folk and Psych of the 60s And 70s by Finders Keepers Records (2009) and Khana Khana - Funk, Psychedelia And Pop from the Iranian Pre-Revolution Generation by Pharaway Sounds (2012).

The Islamic Revolution in 1979 effectively halted her career. In 1980, two years after Iranian Revolution, Marjan was arrested and imprisoned for performing a song. Again in July 1982 she was arrested charged with supporting the People's Mojahedin of Iran. This time she was detained in Evin Prison until 1990. She, then, left Iran to live the rest of her life in the United States. In 2006 she settled in California. In an interview with Simaye Azadi TV, Marjan said that she and her Husband, Fereydoun Jurak, had been arrested, at their home, on 7 July 1982; and had been detained until early 1980. She also said, In the same interview that despite she was released from jail but, she had been banned from leaving the country for 17 years.

Shahla Safi Zamir (Persian: شهلا صافی ضمیر; born 14 July 1948 – 5 June 2020), better known by her stage name Marjan (Persian: مرجان), was an Iranian actress and singer. The Islamic Revolution of 1979 stopped her career and for 27 years she was unable to continue her career.

Shahla Safia Zamir was born in 1948 in Tehran. Her father, Ali Safi Zamir, was a local director in the Ministry of Transport, and her mother, Kobra Bahmani Tabari, was a primary school teacher. Marjan completed her primary education at Alvand High School. At the age of 12, she was a teenage reporter for "Etelaat Koodkan", a weekly published magazine for teenagers. At the same time she was a narrator for the magazine's weekly TV program. After graduating from high school, she married Mehdi Ali-Mohammadi, (a radio and dubbing narrator). This brought her a daughter, Poopak.