Award-winning Iranian Filmmaker Released On Bail

Prominent Iranian film director Jafar Panahi was released on bail on Friday after he started a hunger strike to demand to be freed pending a retrial.

The Directors Guild of Iran announced his release on Friday a day after he had embarked on the hunger strike, adding that his sentence has been declared void by the country’s Supreme Court.

“I firmly declare that in protest against the illegal and inhumane behavior of the judicial and security apparatus and their hostage-taking, I have started a hunger strike since the morning of February 1… I will refuse to eat and drink any food and take medicine until the time of my release,” read a statement he sent to his wife.

The director was imprisoned in early July after going to Evin prison to enquire about the whereabouts of other renowned filmmakers Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Al-Ahmad following their arrest a few days earlier.

Later, it was announced the authorities had decided to reactivate a six-year sentence originally meted out to Panahi in 2010 alongside a 20-year filmmaking and travel ban.

The charges were connected to his attendance at the funeral of a student who was shot dead in 2009 during the Green Movement protests and his later attempt to shoot a feature about the uprising.

In October, Iran’s Supreme Court announced that Panahi’s sentence had passed the country’s ten-year statute of limitations. Accordingly, this should have granted Panahi immediate release, but he is still behind bars.

Panahi has won several international awards, including the 2015 Berlin Film Festival's Golden Bear for his film "Taxi".