DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An Iranian director who was arrested last summer, weeks before his latest film was released to widespread acclaim, has gone on hunger strike to protest his continued detention amid greater than 4 months of anti-government protests.
Jafar Panahi, whose movies have thrilled critics and won quite a few international prizes, issued a press release saying he would refuse food or medicine starting Wednesday “in protest against the extra-legal and inhumane behavior of the judicial and security apparatus.”
He’s amongst numerous Iranian artists, sports figures and other celebrities who’ve been detained after speaking out against Iran’s theocracy. Such arrests have develop into increasingly frequent since nationwide protests broke out in September over the death of a young woman in police custody.
Panahi, 62, was sentenced to 6 years in prison in 2011 on charges of manufacturing anti-government propaganda, however the sentence was never carried out. Banned from each travel and filmmaking, he continued to make underground movies that were released abroad to great acclaim.
He was arrested in July when he went to the Tehran prosecutor’s office to inquire in regards to the arrests of two other Iranian filmmakers. A judge later ruled that he must serve the sooner sentence.
His latest film, “No Bears,” by which he plays a fictionalized version of himself while making a movie along the Iran-Turkey border, premiered on the Venice Film Festival in September, every week before the protests began. The Recent York Times and The Associated Press named it one among the highest 10 movies of the 12 months, and film critic Justin Chang of The Los Angeles Times called it 2022’s best movie.
The protests erupted after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died while being held by Iran’s morality police for allegedly violating the country’s strict Islamic dress code. The demonstrations rapidly escalated into calls for the overthrow of Iran’s ruling clerics, a significant challenge to their four-decade rule.
On Wednesday, around 100 people took part in a protest within the western Iranian city of Abdanan, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported. It said five “rioters” suffered minor injuries when security forces intervened and that 10 people were arrested, without providing further details.
Iran heavily restricts media access to demonstrations and periodically shuts down the web, making it difficult to substantiate specific incidents or gauge the dimensions of the continued demonstrations.
At the least 527 protesters have been killed and greater than 19,500 people have been detained for the reason that demonstrations began, in line with Human Rights Activists in Iran, a gaggle that has closely monitored the unrest. Iranian authorities haven’t released official figures on deaths or arrests.
Taraneh Alidoosti, the 38-year-old star of Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar-winning 2016 film, “The Salesman,” was arrested in December after taking to social media to criticize the crackdown on protests. She was released three weeks in a while bail.