Film directors Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof are among a slew of artists, musicians and bloggers who have been arrested in Iran.
Their detention follows an ongoing public outcry over the collapse of a 10-storey building in the city of Abadan that killed 43 people in May. After the disaster thirteen people, including local politicians, were arrested, but critics of the government say it is dodging its own responsibility and has overseen a culture of corruption.
Panahi, who won the Golden Bear at the 2015 Berlinale for his feature Taxi, was detained on Monday after he went to the prosecutors office in Tehran to protest the earlier arrest of Rasoulof and fellow filmmaker Mostafa Aleahmad. The director was arrested previously in 2010 and on multiple occasions has been refused permission to leave the country. In 2010 he was given a 20-year ban on making or directing films.
Rasoulof is also a Golden Bear winner, receiving the top award in 2020 for There Is No Evil. He has also previously fallen victim of the regime, having been arrested following screenings of his 2017 work A Man of Integrity. The film tells the story of a liberal goldfish farmer battling corporate oppression in the country.
In what has been interpreted as a threat, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Eje’i, Iran’s Judiciary Chief, said, ‘Some of the regime’s arch enemies… seek to promote vulgarity and indecency in society. Dealing with this issue requires intelligence work. Prosecutors, bailiffs, and the intelligence system… should arrange the necessary legal measures against people who openly commit offenses and crimes in public; and they must act diligently regarding the important task of identifying organized movements directed by foreign services to promote immorality in our society.’
