This was confirmed by the Iranian judiciary. A spokesman said Panahi had been in Ewin prison in Tehran for a week, according to the state news agency Irna. It’s about a previous six-year prison sentence that the 62-year-old had to serve. The director was taken away when he wanted to pursue the case of his colleagues Mohammed Rassulof and Mostafa Al-Ahmad, who had been arrested a few days earlier, with the public prosecutor. Rassulof triumphed in Berlin in 2020 with the film “There is no evil”. Together with Al-Ahmad, he is said to have endangered public order with an appeal against violence and also worked with opponents of the regime, the Iranian judicial authority said.
“Put Down Your Weapon”
The background to the appeal is the collapse of a shopping arcade in the southwestern Iranian city of Abadan in May, which killed more than 40 people. Protests were then violently suppressed by the police and security forces. More than 70 people from the Iranian film industry called for an end to police violence using the hashtag “Put your gun down”.
Panahi was convicted in 2010 of “propaganda against the regime”. He was accused of supporting protests against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009 and making critical films. The award-winning filmmaker had made several films in the past despite a ban on working in Iran and a ban on leaving the country. His film “Taxi Tehran” was awarded the Golden Bear at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival.
Source: Nachrichten
