The acclaimed Iranian director Jafar Panahi was provisionally released this Friday, two days after starting a hunger strike to denounce his situation and demand precisely his release from prison, where he had been since July 2022.
The director's son, Panah Panahi, has shared on Instagram an image of his father already released. He has also confirmed the release of the NGO Iran Human Rights, with another photograph of the director and a demand for all filmmakers detained "arbitrarily" to be released.
Panahi announced on Wednesday that he would stop eating, drinking and taking medication until he was released, a move in protest of the "illegal and inhuman behavior" of Iran's security and judicial apparatus, according to a statement released by his wife, Tahereh Saeedi, in your Instagram profile.
"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 will be released from the prison," the director declared two days ago.
Panahi, who received the Golden Bear at the Berlinale in 2015 for the film Taxi Tehran, went to Evin prison on July 11 to protest the arrest of his fellow filmmakers, filmmakers Mohamad Rasoulof and Mustafa al-Ahmad.
Rasoulof --winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for the film against the death penalty The Lives of Others-- and Al Ahmad were arrested for asking the Iranian authorities for restraint when it came to quelling the protests over the collapse of a building in the province of Khuzestan, in the south of the country.
Panahi, the director of The White Balloon (1995), was incarcerated in Evin jail after his 2010 prison sentence for participating in anti-government protests the previous year was reactivated. Twelve years ago, the Justice decided to release him provisionally on a bail of about 200,000 dollars (about 196,000 euros), although it prohibited him from continuing to make films, travel abroad or give interviews.
