Iranian Filmmaker Panahi Begins Hunger Strike In Prison
Famous Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi has gone on a hunger strike to protest his detention in Tehran while his sentence has been declared void by the country’s Supreme Court.
Famous Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi has gone on a hunger strike to protest his detention in Tehran while his sentence has been declared void by the country’s Supreme Court.
Tahereh Saeidi, Panahi’s wife, announced his hunger strike Wednesday publishing Panahi’s on her Instagram sent from the notorious Evin Prison where most political prisoners are kept.
“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,” reads his statement.
The director was imprisoned in early July after going to Evin prison to enquire about the whereabouts of his other renowned filmmakers Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Al-Ahmad following their arrest a few days earlier.
Later, it was announced the Iranian 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.
According to information received by Iran International, Ashkan Baluch, a kickboxing athlete, who was sentenced to five years in prison, attempted suicide in a prison in Tehran and been taken to hospital, where he jumped off the third floor in a second attempt to kill himself. He remains in hospital in serious condition.
Jalal Pirdayeh, a master's student at Sharif University, has been sentenced by a revolutionary court to two years of imprisonment, two years of a ban on leaving the country, and two years of ban on activities in cyberspace.
Maryam Shokrani, a journalist at Shargh newspaper, also announced in a tweet Tuesday that after she was charged with "propaganda against the regime" she has been set free on bail, but she received another notice from the revolutionary court that her charge is changed to "acting against national security".
Meanwhile, Hengaw Human Rights Organization said Mohammad Abbaszadeh, an artist from southwestern Ilam province, has received a two-year prison sentence, a two-year ban on leaving the country, and the payment of a fine.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported that Saman Seidi, a rapper arrested during recent protests, was transferred from a prison in Karaj to an unknown location on January 28.
In the meantime, the case of Shiva Musazadeh, a master's student in dramatic literature at Tehran University of Arts, who was arrested twice during the nationwide uprising has been referred to the Khorramabad Criminal Court.
The campaign of Baluch activists also announced the arrest of eight students of Badr al-Uloom seminary in Zahedan saying that at least six of them are from Afghanistan.
In another development, Abdol-Mahdi Mousavi, the Chief Justice of Markazi Province, said several people have been detained and five others were summoned as they planned to "cut off the Internet and electronic surveillance after obtaining weapons."
Iranian intelligence and security agencies often bring unsubstantiated charges against dissidents, who are then tried behind closed doors without a lawyer.
Information received by Iran International also indicatess that Hawri Qaderi, a 22-year-old from Marivan in Kordestan province, was arrested on January 2 by security agents and taken to an unknown location. Since his arrest, he has talked only once to his family, and efforts to find out his whereabouts have failed.
More details have also emerged about regime security forces resorting to violence against citizens.
Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabai, a lawyer, told Jamaran website that "doctors at an eye Hospital in Tehran have said that they had removed several hundred eyeballs."
Security forces use shotguns to fire shells filled with small steel balls at protesters. The shells are known as ‘bird shots’ and are indiscriminate in nature as they spread among a crowd and often injure eyes.
The lawyer added that heavy sentences have also been handed out to teenage students and high school girls.
Furthermore, Ashkan Marovati, an Iranian Kurdish boxer, who was shot during a fight with security agents, told the CNN that there were about 200 birdshots in his body and the officers fired at him from a close range.
The Kurdish boxer also added that the officers took him to the hospital because they were sure he would die.
