Press release received this morning from Mansour Jahani, an independent and international film journalist: “Jafar Panahi, the Iranian director whose most recent film, It Was Just An Accident, won the Palme d’Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, was sentenced to one year of imprisonment and a two-year ban on leaving the country for the crime of propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Branch 26 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Tehran, headed by Judge Iman Afshari, has rejected the appeal and confirmed the absentia sentence.
Panahi’s lawyer Mostafa Nili: “According to the initial verdict, Jafar Panahi was sentenced to one year in prison on charges of propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran. He was also banned from leaving the country for two years and banned from membership in political and social groups and organizations.”
The evidence for this verdict, as stated in the indictment, includes the following: making an underground and problematic film against the government, supporting some security convicts including Fatemeh Sepehri, Raheleh Rahemipour, Hossein Ronaghi, Mohammad Nourizad, Mehdi Mahmoudian, Abolfazl Ghadiani, and… Supporting the protests, supporting the slogan ‘Women, Life, Freedom’, signing and publishing a statement about the truckers’ strike, blackening the situation in the country, and republishing a clip featuring the singing of the anthem ‘O Iran’ in protest against the issuance and execution of death sentences.”
It goes without saying (I hope) that HE deplores this repressive sentence.