The multi-award-winning director announces that he refuses all food, drink and medicine until his release from prison.
Iranian director Jafar Panahi, one of his country’s most awarded filmmakers, has started a hunger strike in Evin prison in Iran, where he has been imprisoned since last year. Tahereh Saeidi, his wife, announced the news on his Instagram page.
“This arrest looks more like banditry and hostage-taking than the execution of a judgment,” reads the press release translated by the HollywoodReporter.
The director announces that he refuses all food, drink and medicine until his release from prison. “I will remain in this state until my lifeless body is released from prison,” he adds.
Jafar Panahi was arrested with the director Mohammad Rasoulof and his colleague Mostafa Aleahmad for “disturbing public order”. They are accused of encouraging protests after a building collapsed in May that killed 43 people.
In recent times, the Iranian authorities have carried out numerous arrests, including a figure of the reform movement Mostafa Tajzadeh, detained on Friday and accused of “activities against state security”.
Dissident artist Jafar Panahi was arrested and then sentenced in 2010 to six years in prison and a 20-year ban on directing or writing films, traveling or even speaking in the media. However, he continued to work and live in Iran.
He was convicted of “propaganda against the regime”, after supporting the 2009 protest movement against the re-election of ultra-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President of the Islamic Republic.
Jafar Panahi notably obtained a Golden Lion in 2000 for The circleand the Screenplay Prize at Cannes in 2018 with Three Facesthree years after the Golden Bear in Berlin for Taxi Tehran.
