
Acclaimed Iranian filmmaker, Jafar Panahi, who was detained in Tehran last week, has been sentenced to six years in prison.
Panahi was arrested after going to Evin prison to ask about one of two fellow directors apprehended for supporting protests and criticising the government. Reports have it.
He was told by guards that he had an outstanding prison sentence to serve.
“Jafar has some rights as a citizen. There’s due process. To imprison someone, they need to be summoned first. But to imprison someone who is protesting outside the jail raises a lot of questions. This is a kidnapping,” his wife bemoaned.
Panahi, 62, has won many awards at international film festivals. They include the Berlin International Film Festival’s top prize, the Golden Bear, for Taxi in 2015, as well as the Best Screenplay prize at Cannes Film Festival for Three Faces in 2018.