Monitoring Desk
TEHRAN: Jafar Panahi, an award-winning Iranian film director, was released on bail two days after he went on a hunger strike to protest his arrest.
Panah was seen hugging fans on Friday and being driven away from Tehran’s notorious Evin jail. When Panahi, 62, protested the detention of two other filmmakers who had been critical of the authorities, he was detained in July last year. His wife claimed that he was informed that he still had a jail sentence to fulfill.
His wife, Tahereh Saeedi, claimed that her husband’s imprisonment, which occurred several months before the current anti-government protests, constituted kidnapping.
Achievements of film director
At international film festivals, Panahi received numerous prizes. They consist of Taxi’s 2015 Golden Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival and Three Faces’ 2018 Best Screenplay Award from the Cannes Film Festival. The director of the Cannes Film Festival, Thierry Fremaux, expressed “deep relief” at the director’s release.
In an interview, Fremaux said that we do not forget all those in Iran and worldwide who are exposed to violence and tyranny. “The Cannes Film Festival will always stand in solidarity with artists from around the world in favor of freedom.”
Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Al-e Ahmad, filmmakers, were arrested in connection with social media posts on the collapse of a 10-story building in Abadan last May, which killed more than 40 people. They were accused of “inciting unrest and damaging society’s psychological security,” according to Iranian official media.
Separately, images on social media appear to show Farhad Meysami, an imprisoned Iranian dissident who looks malnourished. According to his attorney, Meysami, 53, is on a hunger strike. Some reports claim that he has been delaying eating for several weeks.
Meysami repeated his earlier demands in a letter demanding an end to protester executions, the government’s headscarf requirement for women, and the release of political detainees. Amnesty International says the photos “remind us of the Iranian authorities’ disregard for human rights.” Iran’s judiciary rejected the claim that Mr. Meysami, a physician, had gone on a hunger strike and said the pictures were from four years earlier. Since 2018, Meysami has been imprisoned for openly supporting women activists.
