Beauty queen gives "voice to voiceless"

By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Move over, Bono.

A budding Canadian pop singer inspired in part by the U2 rock star is setting out to save the world, and has scored an early success by leading an international campaign to free an Iranian teeage girl from a date with the hangman.

Nazanin Fatehi killed a would-be rapist in 2005 and was sentenced to death for premeditated murder. She would have joined about two-dozen other youngsters executed in the Islamic republic since 1990, according to Amnesty International, were it not for Nazanin Afshin-Jam, a Canadian singer born in Iran.

Afshin-Jam, a 28-year-old former Miss Canada, stirred up publicity by collecting 350,000 signatures in a petition addressed to the Iranian government and the United Nations. Her namesake was granted a new trial, where the original sentence was overturned. She was freed in January after two years behind bars, during which she attempted suicide. Blood money of $43,000 was paid, most of it raised by Afshin-Jam. She says the whole campaign left her broke.

The Vancouver resident has launched an effort to halt teen executions in Iran (http://www.stopchildexecutions.com), and is helping to send the uneducated Fatehi to school.

Like Bono & Co., Afshin-Jam has no qualms about using her celebrity to get the message out. She won Miss Canada in 2003 and was named first runner-up at Miss World. She has just released her first album, "Someday," which gives her another avenue to promote social justice.

SAVING THE SUFFERING

No cause is too obscure for the exotic activist. Afshin-Jam is speaking out against land purchases by Iranian mullahs in Canada. She has traveled to Ethiopia to inspect efforts to treat fistulas that cause incontinence in new mothers. Along with her sister, she is also campaigning against bear farming in China (http://www.stopbearfarming.com).