Panahi, 62, who won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2015 for his film “Taxi,” was arrested in Tehran on Monday when he went to the prosecutor’s office to check on the filmmaker. Mohammad Rasoulof, Iran’s semi-official news agency. Mehr reported.
Rasoulof, also a Golden Bear winner in 2020 for “There Is No Evil,” and his colleague Mostafa Aleahmad were arrested last Friday on charges of attempting to “inflame and disrupt the psychological security of the community.” , according to the semi-official Fars. News agency.
Reuters, citing state news agency IRNA, reported that the couple was part of a group of filmmakers who had signed a letter asking security forces to lay down their arms during the protests that followed after the collapse. fatality of a 10-story building in the city. of Abadan on 23 May. Human Rights Watch said the arrests were part of a “crackdown … on peaceful dissent amid deteriorating economic conditions and what appears to be a stalemate in reactivating the international community’s nuclear deal with the ‘Iran’.
HRW described Rasoulof as an open critic who was previously sentenced in an Iranian court to “one year in prison and a two-year ban on making films on charges of” propaganda against the system “for the content of his movies “.
The filmmakers’ arrests have sparked international condemnation.
On Monday, the Cannes Film Festival issued a statement demanding the “immediate release” of Panahi and Rasoulof and Aleahmad, who he said were “protesting against violence against civilians in Iran.”
“The Cannes Film Festival strongly condemns these arrests, as well as the wave of repression that is obviously underway in Iran against its artists,” he said.
Panahi’s film “3 Faces” won Best Screenplay at Cannes in 2018; Rasoulof’s work has won several awards at the festival since 2011.
‘Repressive reflex’
Separately, Iran’s former interior minister, Mostafa Tajzadeh, was also arrested last Friday on charges of conspiracy against national security and “posting lies to disturb public opinion,” according to the agency. semi-official news Lighthouses of Iran.
Tajzadeh, who briefly served under President Mohammad Khatami in 1998, has become an open critic of the government, and recently tweeted to his 350,000 followers that “according to the latest Stasis poll, 57% of Iranians “support the Iranian nuclear deal” and 17% are against it. that. “
Tajzadeh was previously arrested and convicted of sedition in 2009 after a contested presidential election that sparked mass protests. He was sentenced to prison that year and released in 2016. The U.S. withdrew from the Iranian nuclear deal in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump; since then, Iran has taken a number of measures that violate the limits imposed by the agreement on its nuclear program. US and European officials have repeatedly warned that the window to return to the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan, as the agreement is known. – is shrinking, with State Department spokesman Ned Price saying in mid-June that “it’s an open question if we can get there.” – The pandemic of the 19th and the war in Ukraine. In May, anti-government protests were recorded in at least 40 cities and towns across Iran; protesters chanted anti-government slogans and called for the fall of the regime, according to videos on social media posted by activists. “Unable or unwilling to face the many serious challenges facing Iran, the government has resorted to its repressive reflex of arresting popular critics,” said Tara Sepehri Far, Iran’s lead researcher. and Human Rights Watch. “There is no reason to believe that these recent arrests are more than cynical moves to deter popular outrage at the government’s widespread failures.”
CNN’s Sahar Akbarzai, Ramin Mostaghim and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.