TEHRAN: The award-winning director Jafar Panahi has become the third Iranian filmmaker to be arrested in less than a week, the Mehr news agency has said, as he visited prosecutors over the detentions last week of Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad.
Panahi, 62, has won a slew of awards at international festivals for films that have critiqued modern Iran, including the top prize in Berlin for Taxi in 2015, and best screenplay at Cannes for 3 Faces in 2018.
He was previously arrested with Rasoulof after anti-government protests in 2010 and sentenced to six years in jail, after which neither were permitted to leave the country.
“Jafar Panahi has been arrested today when he went to the prosecutor’s office to follow up on the situation of another filmmaker, Mohammad Rasoulof,” Mehr reported.
The state news agency IRNA reported on Friday that Rasoulof and Aleahmad had been arrested in connection with protests relating to the deaths of 43 people on May 23 in the collapse of the 10-storey Metropol building in the city of Abadan.
The demonstrators had demanded that “incompetent officials” responsible for the tragedy be prosecuted and punished. Many faced teargas, warning shots and arrests by the police.
A group of Iranian filmmakers led by Rasoulof published an open letter calling on the security forces to “lay down their arms” in the face of outrage over the “corruption, theft, inefficiency and repression” surrounding the Abadan collapse.
Iranian authorities accused the two of links with opposition groups based outside the country and plotting to undermine state security, IRNA said. “In the midst of the heartbreaking incident in Abadan’s Metropol, (the filmmakers) were involved in inciting unrest and disrupting the psychological security of society,” it said.
The report did not say when the two were arrested. At least 70 Iranian film-makers and film industry workers signed the appeal.
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