One of Iran’s most illustrious film-makers, Jafar Panahi, is on hunger strike in protest at his continued detention in Tehran’s Evin prison, his wife has said.
The Cannes film festival award-winner and director of The White Balloon, The Circle and No Bears took the step after plans for his release were dashed, even though his lawyer had successfully challenged his detention.
Panahi was arrested in early July, before the current wave of protests, after he went to Evin to protest over the detention days earlier of two film-maker colleagues, Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad.
Iranian authorities said they had decided to reactivate sentences imposed in 2010 alongside a 20-year travel and film-making ban linked to his attendance at the funeral of a student shot dead in the 2009 green revolution protests, and his later attempt to make a film against the backdrop of the uprising.
Panahi’s wife, Tahereh Saeedi, and son, Panah Panahi, published a statement from the director on their Instagram accounts on Wednesday evening announcing his intention to stop eating.
He said he had no choice but to battle against the inhumanity of the regime with his dearest possession, his life. “I firmly declare that in protest against the illegal and inhumane behaviour of the judicial and security apparatus and their hostage-taking, I have started a hunger strike since the morning of [1 February],” he wrote.
“I will refuse to eat and drink any food and medicine until the time of my release. I will remain in this state until perhaps my lifeless body is freed from prison.”
His lawyer had argued at the supreme court in October that the sentence from 2010 had passed Iran’s 10-year statute of limitations period and was no longer applicable. He was granted permission to apply for a retrial in a move that should have resulted in Panahi automatically being released on bail, but Iranian authorities have blocked this.
“While we have seen that it takes less than 30 days from the time of arrest to the hanging of the innocent youth of our country, it took more than 100 days to transfer my case to the branch with the intervention of security forces,” Panahi wrote.
He said Iranian authorities had made repeated excuses as to why he was not being released. “What is certain is that the violent and illegal behaviour of the security institution and the reckless surrender of the judiciary once again shows the implementation of selective and tasteful laws,” he wrote.
“It is only an excuse for repression. I knew that the judicial system and the security institutions have no will to implement the law (which they brag about), but out of respect for my lawyers and friends, I went through all the legal channels to fight for my rights.
“Today, like many people trapped in Iran, I have no choice but to protest against these inhumane behaviours with my dearest possession, that is, my life.”
Panahi’s detention preceded the death of Mahsa Amini in September while in custody for not wearing her hijab in accordance with Iran’s religion-based law.
Hojjat al-Islam Mohammad Mossadegh, the first deputy of the judiciary, said on Thursday, on the eve of the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, that the regime would arrest a series of people involved in the recent protests. So far four people have been executed and many more have been sentenced to death.
