Mohammad Rasoulof, an award-winning Iranian director, has been sentenced to eight years in prison and lashings, his lawyer told The Associated Press on Thursday.
Rasoulof, 51, best known for his film “There Is No Evil,” has become the latest target in the Islamic Republic’s broad assault on all dissent following years of major rallies, including Mahsa Amini’s death in 2022.
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Iranian officials have not acknowledged the sentence, but Rasoulof and other artists co-signed a statement imploring authorities to “put your gun down” amid protests over a 2022 building collapse in the southwestern city of Abadan that killed at least 29 people. Since then, authorities have questioned or sentenced musicians, sportsmen, entertainers, and others to prison.
Babak Paknia, Mr. Rasoulof’s lawyer, told the AP that he issued this judgment because he signed statements in support of the Iranian people. He stated that the discovery of such words, along with his tweets and other social activity, constituted instances of ‘action against national security.’
Paknia said that Tehran’s Revolutionary Court would try Rasoulof.
Many have widely condemned the tribunals for not allowing prisoners on trial to choose their own counsel or even see the evidence against them in closed-door hearings. These tribunals frequently handle cases of people with Western ties who Iran later uses in prisoner swaps.
The director is also facing lashings, penalties, and asset confiscation, according to his attorney.
Iran’s delegation to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment on Rasoulof’s sentence. He was supposed to travel to Cannes later this month to see the premiere of his latest film, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.”
According to Paknia, Iranian officials had summoned certain crew members involved in the creation of “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” and were under pressure to withdraw it from the Cannes film festival.
The lawyer claims that in recent weeks, officials “interrogated” several crew members, questioned actors, and prevented them from leaving Iran.
The number of project participants who underwent probing was unclear.
“There Is No Evil,” which offers four stories loosely related to the practice of the death penalty in Iran, received the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2020. Rasoulof was unable to accept the award because Iranian authorities had issued him a travel ban. Authorities sentenced Rasoulof to a year in prison shortly after he received the award, citing his three films as “propaganda against the system.”
He has received multiple prison sentences and film bans in his own country, Iran, where the Shiite theocracy has long railed against Western-embraced artists as part of a “soft war” against its policies. Nonetheless, Iran has gained recognition on the world film circuit for daring, thought-provoking films that depict the difficulties of life in the Islamic Republic.
Last year, fellow filmmaker Saeed Roustayi and his producer feared legal action after attending Cannes to screen “Leila’s Brothers.”
Last month, an Iranian court sentenced rapper Toomaj Salehi to death for participating in protests provoked by Amini’s killing. United Nations human rights officials released a statement demanding Salehi’s immediate release and urging Iranian authorities to overturn the conviction. The Revolutionary Court had charged Salehi with “assistance in sedition, assembly and collusion, propaganda against the system, and calling for riots,” Raisian explained.
Following Amini’s death in September 2022, months of turmoil saw hundreds of people slain, including dozens of security personnel, and thousands jailed. Iranian officials referred to the protests as “riots” and accused Tehran’s international adversaries of inciting the turmoil.
