A little more than a year after the 54-year-old photojournalist was tortured and beaten to death while in the hands of Iran's security service, one of her dreams is coming true. Her death is drawing worldwide attention to her birth country's human rights abuses and sparking international demands for the Islamic regime's hardliners to reform.

Since then, the case has become one of the most high-profile human rights cases in Iran in recent memory, pitting the hard-line judiciary against democratic reformers. In an attempt at damage control, the hard-liners were reported to have ordered the closure of some newspapers that were covering the trial, including the allegations of state torture.