Iran has released an award-winning filmmaker more than six months after arresting him for criticizing the government, a pro-reform newspaper reported on Monday.
Mohammad Rasoulof, whose 2020 film “There Is No Evil” won first prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, is one of several prominent artists, athletes and other celebrities detained in recent months for criticizing authorities.
He was arrested in July for criticizing the government’s crackdown on protests in the southwestern city of Abadan over a deadly building collapse. Two months later, protests broke out across the country after a 22-year-old woman died in the custody of the country’s moral police.
The Shargh newspaper, which is associated with the country’s reform movement, said Rasoulof had recently been suspended from prison and was formally released, without specifying dates or providing further information. There were no official comments.
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Iranian producer Farzad Pak holds a phone showing Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, who received the “Golden Bear for Best Picture” for his film “There is no evil.” (Photo by John Macdougall/AFP via Getty Images)
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Earlier this month, Iran released famed director Jafar Panahi, who was arrested in July after inquiring about the detention of Rasoulof and another colleague. Authorities have also released Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti on bail after she was detained for criticizing the crackdown on recent protests.
Iranians took to the streets over the death in September of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish Iranian woman who was detained by morality police for allegedly violating the country’s strict Islamic dress code. The protests turned into calls for the overthrow of the country’s ruling clerics, marking one of the biggest challenges they have faced since coming to power in the 1979 revolution.
At least 529 protesters have been killed and nearly 20,000 arrested since those protests began, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has closely followed the unrest. Iranian authorities have not released official figures for deaths or arrests.
“There Is No Evil,” which tells four stories loosely connected to the use of the death penalty in Iran, won the Golden Bear award in Berlin in 2020. Rasoulof was not on hand to receive the award due to the travel ban enforcing was imposed on him. by the Iranian authorities.
