Iranian director Jafar Panahi has been sentenced to five years and one month in prison. The decision was made in absentia by the Revolutionary Court in Tehran, and the court also ordered the confiscation of all his assets, his lawyer Mustafa Nili announced.
A two-year ban on leaving Iran was also imposed. The charges in the new case have not yet been clarified.
“Last week, my client informed me that his bank accounts had been frozen,“ said Neely.“
The lawyer checked with the judicial authorities after the freezing of the accounts and found that the sentence was handed down in the director's absence. Jafar Panahi returned to Iran in early April.
The new sentence comes after a separate one-year prison sentence for “propaganda against the system“. In that case, the court cited the secretly filmed film “An Ordinary Incident“ as the main evidence.
The film won the “Palme d'Or“ at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and received nominations for a „Golden Globe“ and an „Oscar“. The film solidified the international recognition of Panahi, who has been working under restrictions by the Iranian authorities for years.
Jafar Panahi is one of the most prominent critics of the Iranian government. He was imprisoned from July 2022 to February 2023, and over the years restrictions have been imposed on him related to his professional activities and his travel.