Jafar Panahi, a filmmaker opposing the Iranian regime and imprisoned since last July, was released on bail on Friday, February 3, 2 days after starting a hunger strike to protest his imprisonment, the Center for Human Rights in Iran announced in a tweet. He had been imprisoned in July to serve a six-year prison sentence after a verdict issued in 2010, which also condemned him to a twenty-year ban on directing or writing films, traveling or even speaking in the media (Satellifacts, July 19). The judgment was overturned on October 15 and the Iranian regime's Supreme Court sent the case to another court.
In France, SRF and ARP had demanded his immediate release and called for the signing of a petition launched by French-Iranian artist Marjane Satrapi, asking governments to "condemn in the strongest terms the terrible crimes of the Iranian regime against its people" and to “protect the freedom to think and create” (Satellifacts, February 2).
Jafar Panahi won a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2000 for his film The Circle. In 2015, he was awarded a Golden Bear in Berlin for Taxi, and in 2018 he won Best Screenplay for 3 Faces at the Cannes Film Festival.