The famous Iranian director Jafar Panahi was released on bail, two days after starting his hunger strike “to protest against the inhumane and illegal behavior of the Islamic Republic and the taking of hostages” as he defined the political prisoners in the country. The BBC reports it in Farsi, also publishing photos of the filmmaker outside prison.
Iran, the extreme challenge of director Panahi: “I will die to leave this prison”
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The story
Panahi had been in prison since July 2022. He had gone to Evin Prison to inquire about Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Al-Ahmad, two filmmakers arrested in the previous days. Since then he has been behind bars, without a real charge other than the generic one common to all dissidents of “propaganda against the government”. According to the Iranian authorities, the arrest is linked to a six-year sentence dating back to 2010. He had been arrested together with his wife and daughter for his dissident activity and after three months released on bail in a sort of conditional release: prohibition for 20 years of getting out of the country, writing screenplays and making movies. Pending the appeal, in 2011, he had shot “This is not a film”, a video diary with a provocative title to underline the censorship to which he was subjected and smuggled out of Iran on a hard disk.