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Jafar Panahi is at large again
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STRINGER / REUTERS
Award-winning Iranian film director Jafar Panahi has been released on bail after seven months in prison.
The Iranian newspaper »Shargh« published a picture of the 62-year-old happily hugging a supporter.
According to the AP news agency, Panahi's lawyer, Yusef Moulai, confirmed the release.
Since July 2022, Panahi has been held in the notorious Ewin prison in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
According to the Iranian judiciary, the prison sentence should be a total of six years 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 internationally best-known directors.
For his latest film »No Bears«, he received a special prize from the jury in absentia at the Venice Film Festival.
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«.
The management duo of the Berlinale, Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian, said: "We were very concerned about Jafar Panahi's health and are now very happy that he was finally released." On Wednesday evening, filmmakers, citing Panahi's family, announced that the 62-year-old went on a hunger strike.
Artists also targeted by the regime
Several well-known filmmakers and directors are imprisoned in Iran.
Among them is the Berlinale winner Mohammed Rassulof.
Actresses who had shown solidarity with the wave of protests led by women were also arrested during the most recent demonstrations.
Rassulof and Panahi were critical of the collapse of a shopping arcade under construction last summer.
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.
hba/dpa/AP