Iranian filmmaker Panahi says Tehran rulers cannot sustain control

Award-winning Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi said Iran’s leaders would not be able to maintain control after the violent suppression of recent protests, predicting the system would eventually collapse.

“It is impossible for this government to sustain itself in this situation,” Panahi told the Guardian.

He said the recent internet blackout signaled that authorities were preparing for large-scale violence.

“They knew it would be a massacre,” he said. “But we never predicted it would reach these dimensions.”

Panahi said the timing of any collapse was impossible to predict but added: “The regime will collapse, 100%.”