Iranian authorities have arrested two film-makers over an appeal they posted on social media, accusing them of links with opposition groups based outside the country and plotting to undermine the nation’s state security, Iran’s state-run news agency reported on Friday.
According to IRNA, award-wining director Mohammad Rasoulof and colleague Mostafa Al-Ahmad were taken into custody for posting a statement on social media urging members of the Iranian security forces to lay down their weapons.
The hashtag #put_your_gun_down is a reference to the violent crackdown during the unrest after a building collapsed in the south-western city of Abadan that killed at least 41 people earlier this year.
The report did not say when the two were arrested. At least 70 Iranian film-makers and film industry workers had signed the appeal.
The 23 May collapse at the Metropol building in Abadan, some 660 kilometres (410 miles) south-west of the capital, Tehran, dredged up memories of past national disasters and shone a spotlight on shoddy construction practices, government corruption and negligence in Iran. Protests erupted in Abadan over the collapse and the demonstrations have seen police club protesters and fire tear gas.
Rasoulof, who has been detained in the past and has had his passport confiscated, won the Berlin film festival’s top prize in 2020 for his film There Is No Evil. It tells four stories loosely connected to the themes of the death penalty in Iran and personal freedoms under tyranny.
Shortly after receiving the award he was sentenced to a year in prison for three films he made that authorities found to be “propaganda against the system”. His lawyer appealed the sentence. He was also banned from making films and travelling abroad.
In 2011, Rasoulof and fellow director Jafar Panahi were arrested for filming without a permit. The pair received six years in prison and were banned from film-making for 20 years on charges that included “making propaganda” against the ruling system, but Rasoulof’s sentence was later reduced on appeal to a year.
The same year Rasoulof’s film Goodbye won a prize at Cannes but he was not allowed to travel to France to accept it.
On Saturday organisers of the Berlin film festival protested against the directors’ arrests and called for their release.
“It’s shocking that artists are taken into custody because of their peaceful endeavours against violence,” said the festival directors Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian in a statement.