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Jafar Panahi: One of the most important artists in Iran has been patronized and harassed for decades
Photo: Sideshow / Janus Films / picture alliance / ASSOCIATED PRESS
Award-winning Iranian film director Jafar Panahi has reportedly gone on a hunger strike.
This was reported by filmmakers on social media, citing Panahi's family.
The 62-year-old has been in the notorious Ewin prison in the Iranian capital, Tehran, since July 2022.
According to the judiciary, the director is serving a six-year prison sentence there for »anti-government propaganda«.
Panahi, who also takes a critical look at the politics of the Islamic Republic in his films, is one of the country's most internationally renowned directors.
In absentia, he received a special prize from the jury at the Venice Film Festival in September for his latest film »No Bears«.
He has received many other awards over the course of his career, such as the main prize at the Berlinale in 2015 for »Taxi Tehran«.
Several well-known filmmakers and directors are imprisoned in Iran.
Among them is the Berlinale winner Mohammad Rasoulof ("But there is no such thing as evil").
Rasoulof and Panahi were critical of the collapse of a shopping arcade under construction last summer.
Actresses who had shown solidarity with the wave of protests led by women were also arrested during the most recent demonstrations.
Among them Taraneh Alidoosti, who had acted in films by director Ashgar Farhadi, who was also internationally known.
She has since been released on bail.
The latest wave of protests in Iran was triggered by the death of the Iranian Kurd Jina Mahsa Amini in police custody in mid-September.
She had been arrested by the so-called vice police for violating Islamic dress codes.
Street protests have abated in recent weeks.
Many women now express their displeasure through civil disobedience, for example by ignoring the compulsory headscarf.
kae/dpa