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Jafar Panahi
Photo: ATTA KENARE / AFP
In Iran, the prominent director Jafar Panahi has been arrested after the government-critical filmmakers Mohammed Rassulof and Mostafa Al-Ahmad.
This is reported by several Iranian media.
According to the Iranian news agency Mehr, the 62-year-old Panahi was taken away when he went to the public prosecutor's office to investigate the case of his colleague Rasoulof, who was arrested on Friday.
There was no official confirmation of the arrest.
The award-winning filmmaker had made several films in the past despite a ban on working in Iran and a ban on leaving the country.
His film »Taxi Tehran« was awarded the Golden Bear at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival.
Berlinale protests
Two prominent directors, Berlinale winner Rassulof and Al-Ahmad, were arrested in Iran at the weekend.
According to the Iranian judicial authorities, they are said to have endangered public order with an appeal against violence and also worked with opponents of the regime.
The organizers of the Berlinale had protested against the arrest.
The background to the appeal is the collapse of a shopping arcade in the southwestern Iranian city of Abadan in May, which killed more than 40 people.
Protests were then violently suppressed by the police and security forces.
More than 70 people from the Iranian film industry called for an end to police violence using the hashtag "Put your gun down".
The initiators are said to have been Rassulof and Al-Ahmad.
Panahi claims to have expressed solidarity with several hundred filmmakers on the Internet after the arrest at the weekend with Rassulof and Al-Ahmad.
svs/dpa