A dissident artist, Mr. Panahi had been arrested, then sentenced in 2010 to six years in prison and twenty years of prohibition to make or write films, to travel or even to express himself in the media. However, he continued to work and live in Iran.
Le Monde with AFP
Arrested last week in Tehran, the filmmaker and opponent Iranian Jafar Panahi must serve a six -year sentence, according to a verdict issued in 2010, the judicial authority announced on Tuesday 19 July. 62 years old, Panahi, one of the most award-winning Iranian filmmakers, “was taken to the Evin detention center to serve his sentence,” said justice spokesman Massoud Sétayechi, during a press conference.
A dissident artist, Mr. Panahi had been arrested and then sentenced in 2010 to six years in prison and twenty years of prohibition to make or write films, to travel or even to express himself in the media. However, he continued to work and live in Iran. He had been condemned for “propaganda against the regime”, after having supported the 2009 protest movement against the re -election of the ultra -conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the Presidency of the Islamic Republic. Detained for two months in 2010, he lived under a regime of parole that can be dismissed at any time.
The filmmaker notably obtained a gold lion in 2000 in Venice for the circle, and the Prix du Scénario in Cannes in 2018 with three faces, three years after the gold bear in Berlin for Taxi Tehran.
On July 11, Mr. Panahi was arrested upon arrival at the Tehran prosecutor’s office to follow the file of another also awarded director, Mohammad Rasoulof, detained since July 8 with his colleague Mostafa al-Hamad. The filmmakers had denounced, in mid-May, in an open letter the arrest of several of their colleagues by the authorities and the repression against the demonstrators in Iran.
many arrests
In recent times, the Iranian authorities have stopped many people, including a figure in the reform movement, Mostafa Tajzadeh, arrested on July 8 in Tehran. Mr. Tajzadeh “is currently in pre -trial detention in Evin” and “has been accused of gathering and collusion against state security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic,” said Tuesday Mr. Sétayechi.
Former vice-minister under the government of the Reformer Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005) and 65, Tajzadeh had brought candidate for the 2021 presidential election as a “citizen, reformist” and “political prisoner during seven years “. He was previously arrested in 2009 before being released in 2016 and has been campaigning for several years for “structural changes” and democratic within the Islamic Republic.
Friday, France called for the “immediate liberation” of Iranian filmmakers and “other Iranian personalities committed for the defense of freedom of expression in their country”, showing a phenomenon illustrating “deterioration disturbing of the situation of artists in Iran “.