The Iranian poet Simin Behbahani, known as the “Lioness of Iran”, who wrote of the joys of love and demanded equal rights for women, has died aged 87. She had been in hospital and died of heart failure and breathing problems, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported.

Behbahani’s poetry was often used by Iranian singers as the basis for love songs. Her work also focused on the challenges facing Iran in the wake of the Islamic revolution in 1979 and women's rights. She studied law at Tehran university in the 1950s, was awarded the Simone de Beauvoir prize for Women's Freedom in 2009 and was nominated twice for the Nobel prize in literature.

In 2010, she was barred from leaving the country to attend an International Women's Day event in Paris. In 2006, an opposition newspaper was shut down for printing one of her works, an editor there said at the time. But she remained a force in Iranian life, writing after the country's disputed 2009 election: "Stop this extravagance, this reckless throwing of my country to the wind."

The poem ends: "You may wish to have me burned or decide to stone me / But in your hand, match or stone will lose their power to harm me."

You can read more about Simin Behbahani here