He has shown his solidarity with his arrested colleagues and is now in prison himself: The “Taxi Tehran” director Jafar Panahi has been harassed by the regime in Tehran for years.
Tehran – The Iranian judiciary has confirmed the detention of award-winning film director Jafar Panahi. A spokesman said on Tuesday, according to the state news agency Irna, that Panahi has been in Ewin prison in Tehran for a week. It’s about a previous six-year prison sentence that the 62-year-old has to serve.
Panahi was arrested in Iran about a week ago. 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 Berlin Film Festival in 2015.
Two other prominent directors, Berlinale winner Mohammed Rassulof and Mostafa Al-Ahmad, were arrested shortly before. According to the Iranian judiciary, they are said to have endangered public order with an appeal against violence and also worked with opponents of the regime. The organizers of the Berlinale had protested against the arrest.
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”. The initiators are said to have been Rassulof and Al-Ahmad. Panahi claims to have expressed solidarity with several hundred filmmakers on the Internet after the arrest at the weekend with Rassulof and Al-Ahmad. dpa
