Iran: Award-winning film director Panahi to serve decade-old jail term

Jury president Darren Aronofsky holds the Golden Bear for Finest Movie for the movie ‘Taxi’ by Jafar Panahi as he stands between presenter Anke Engelke and competition director Dieter Kosslick (R) on the awards ceremony of the sixty fifth Berlinale Worldwide Movie Pageant in Berlin February 14, 2015. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke/File Photograph

DUBAI, July 19 (Reuters) – Award-winning Iranian movie director Jafar Panahi will serve a six-year jail sentence initially issued by a Tehran court docket in 2010, a judiciary spokesman mentioned on Tuesday, amid a stepped-up crackdown on dissent within the Islamic Republic.

Panahi was detained on July 11 whereas visiting the Tehran prosecutor’s workplace to observe up the instances of two Iranian filmmakers, Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad, who have been arrested on security-related prices earlier this month.

“This particular person (Panahi) was sentenced to a complete of six years in jail as a consequence of his propaganda in opposition to the Islamic Republic in 2010…, but it surely was not enforced,” judiciary spokesman Masoud Setayeshi instructed a televised information convention.

In 2010, an Iranian court docket sentenced Panahi to 6 years in jail and banned him from making motion pictures or travelling overseas for 20 years after he was convicted of “propaganda in opposition to the system”.

Panahi mentioned then that he was a sufferer of injustice and referred to as one of many prices in opposition to him “a joke”. He was later launched on bail.

Panahi has received a number of worldwide awards, together with the Cannes Movie Pageant’s Digicam d’Or prize for his 1995 film “White Balloon” and the 2015 Berlin Movie Pageant’s Golden Bear for his movie “Taxi”, shot in Iran whereas he was free on bail.

His movies haven’t been proven in Iran.

The Cannes competition condemned the arrest of Iranian movie makers and France final week referred to as on Tehran to free them.

Over the previous a number of months, Iran’s hardline rulers has confronted rising public discontent over hovering costs, particularly for meals and housing, which have sparking unrest throughout the nation. Dozens of activists, lecturers and retirees have been arrested, in line with Iranian media reviews.

Writing by Parisa Hafezi
Enhancing by Mark Heinrich

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