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Acclaimed Iranian director Jafar Panahi was released on bail Friday, two days after he began a hunger strike to protest his imprisonment last summer, his supporters said.
Panahi was arrested last July and later sentenced to six years on charges of defrauding the government, a sentence he has never served since 2011. They are among several Iranian artists, sports figures and other celebrities who have been detained after speaking out against the theocracy.
Such arrests have become more frequent since national protests erupted in September over the death of a young woman in police custody. Panahi, 62, has continued to make award-winning films for more than a decade despite being banned from traveling and making films.
His latest film No Bears released to widespread acclaim in September while he was behind bars, a week before protests erupted.
Yusef Moulai, Panahi’s lawyer, confirmed he had been released on bail and returned home. He said Panahi was fine after not eating for two days. He declined to provide further information.
The semi-official news agency ISNA said several artists had welcomed him as he left the notorious Evin Prison in the capital, Tehran.
Panahi had issued a statement earlier this week saying he would refuse food or medicine from Wednesday “in protest against the extra-legal and inhumane behavior of the judicial and security apparatus.”
He was arrested in July when he went to the Tehran prosecutor’s office to ask questions about the arrest of two other Iranian filmmakers. The judge then decided that he should serve his previous sentence.
At No Bearshe plays a fictional version of himself while filming along the Iran-Turkey border.
The New York Times and The Associated Press named it one of the 10 best movies of the year, and film critic Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times called it the best movie of 2022.
Hundreds were killed in the month of protests
The protests erupted after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, was killed in the custody of Iran’s morality police for allegedly violating the country’s strict Islamic dress code.
The demonstrations quickly escalated into calls for the overthrow of Iran’s ruling clerics, the main challenge to his four-decade rule.
At least 527 protesters have been killed and more than 19,500 people have been detained since the demonstrations began, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has been closely monitoring the unrest.
Iranian authorities have not released official figures on deaths or arrests. Several Iranian filmmakers and other artists have expressed support for the protests and criticized the crackdown on dissent.
Rights groups said authorities used live ammunition, birdshot and tear gas to disperse protesters. Iran has executed four people on charges related to the protests, and rights groups say at least 16 others have been sentenced to death in closed hearings. Taraneh Alidoosti, the 38-year-old star of Asghar Farhadi’s 2016 Oscar-winning film The Salesman was arrested in December after taking to social media to criticize the crackdown on protests. He was released three weeks later on bail.
Canadians of Iranian descent are concerned that members and affiliates of the Islamic Republic of Iran may continue to come to Canada as pressure mounts on the regime. He said Canadian officials did not act quickly enough to stop it, and some took matters into their own hands.
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