Iran, activist: “Panahi arrest? International community awake”

“The international community must wake up and defend it”. These are the words chosen by Taher Djafarizad, Iranian dissident president of the Neda Day association, to comment on the news of the arrest of director Jafar Panahi, stopped at the Tehran prosecutor’s office where he had gone to the case of another director, Mohammad Rasoulof, detained since Friday. “There is a risk that he will have to serve six years in prison”, explains to Adnkronos Djafarizad, citing sources in Iran who underline how the director who won the Golden Lion in Venice in 2000 and the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2015 he was sentenced to six years on probation and must serve his sentence in case of a new crime. “Panahi is a great director and also a human rights activist. His problems started with the film Offside”, about the condition of women in Iran, continues the activist, claiming to have contacted him personally to plead the cause of another lawyer and human rights activist, Nasrin Soutodeh, in the European Parliament. “She told me: ‘I can’t Taher, they arrest me'”, emphasizes Djafarizad, announcing that he will discuss the director’s case with MEP Pierfrancesco Majorino in the coming days. “There are many other Iranian directors less famous than Panahi who are in his same condition,” he concludes.