In a statement on its website, The House of Cinema, which organizes professional filmmakers in Iran, called for his release “as soon as possible” and appealed to Iran’s judiciary to take into account the filmmaker’s “physical condition and illness,” without elaborating closer.
Panahi, 62, was arrested on July 11 at the court in Tehran, where he had come to follow the case of another award-winning director, Mohammad Rasoulof, who was detained a few days earlier.
Panahi is now serving a six-year sentence handed down back in 2010 for “propaganda against the system”, after he supported protests at the disputed re-election of then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Panahi, who is one of Iran’s most awarded filmmakers, has also been banned for 20 years from making films, traveling and speaking to the media.
Last week, Mohammad Rasoulof’s lawyer told AFP that his client had been released on January 7 for two weeks for health reasons.
Meanwhile, a court sentenced documentary filmmaker Mojgan Ilanlou to six years in prison and 74 lashes for conspiracy against the country’s national security, the reformist newspaper Shargh reported on its website.
Ilanlou had been imprisoned for 90 days and spent 40 of those in solitary confinement, writes Shargh.
Iran has arrested a number of leading figures in the country’s film industry in connection with the protest movement sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini last September.