Panahi was arrested in Tehran in July 2022 to serve a six-year prison sentence for criticising the government, a judgment that was first handed down in 2010.
Incarcerated Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi has gone on hunger strike in protest at his continued detention in Tehran’s Evin prison, Tahereh Saeidi, the wife of the filmmaker has said.
He took the step after plans for his release were dashed, even though his lawyer Saleh Nikbakht had successfully challenged his detention.
Panahi was arrested in early July 2022, before the current wave of protests, after he went to Evin to protest over the detention days earlier of two filmmaker colleagues, Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad.
It was announced a few days later that the Iranian authorities had decided to reactivate a six-year sentence originally meted out to Panahi in 2010 alongside a 20-year filmmaking and travel ban.
Panahi’s wife Tahereh Saeedi and son Panah Panahi published a statement from the director announcing his intention to stop eating on their Instagram. Panahi wrote: “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 the 12th of Bahman (February 1).”
“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.”
“While we have seen that it takes less than 30 days from the time of the 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.”
