At the beginning of her ordeal, Momeni was angry and frustrated that she couldn't go on with her life, her fiance told ABCNews.com. But, "at this point, she's sort of given up hope, but only in order to allow herself to maintain her self-dignity," Hussain [Momeni's fiance] said.
"She has to imagine that she is going to be there forever mentally," Hussain added, "because each day she can't wonder if she might be released tomorrow." He said Momeni fills her time by working on art projects.
And her academic work and work with The One Million Signatures Campaign:
Momeni's friends say her arrest and the confiscation of her research materials don't make sense because she wasn't attempting to make a political statement and was not filming in public without consent, which is against Iranian law. Instead, they say, Momeni was filming intimate interviews in volunteers' homes in her quest to show Americans how stereotypes of Iranian women as weak or helpless are wrong...
"She was trying to bridge these two cultures that have not understood each other for a long time," said Momeni's thesis advisor, Professor Melissa Wall.
And Roja Bandari, a volunteer with the One Million Signatures campaign in California, said the Iranian women who are working on the project in Iran should be considered a source of pride to the country instead of a threat against it.
"They aren't doing anything covert or working to topple the Iranian government," Bandari said, adding that the grassroots movement does not contradict Iranian law.
To read the complete article please click here.
Also on Professor Wall's blog.
