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Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi's one-year prison sentence has been upheld by a court in Iran following a retrial linked to charges of "propaganda activity against the regime."
According to Deadline, Tehran Revolutionary Court Judge Iman Afshari rejected objections raised by Panahi's legal team and upheld the earlier verdict that had been issued in his absence. Panahi's lawyer, Mostafa Nili, shared details of the ruling and said the court upheld the sentence over allegations related to the making of an "underground and problematic film against the establishment." "Under the initial verdict, Panahi had been sentenced to one year in prison on the charge of engaging in propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran," Nili said in an interview with Iran's Emtedad, Deadline said. The ruling came while Panahi was outside Iran promoting his Cannes Palme d'Or-winning film It Was Just An Accident. Apart from the one-year prison sentence, the filmmaker has also been handed a two-year travel ban. He is additionally barred from holding membership in political and social groups. Nili said the ruling can still be challenged through the legal process and noted that an appeal can be filed within 20 days. According to Deadline, Panahi has faced legal troubles in Iran for several years. In July 2022, he was arrested after visiting Tehran's Evin prison to seek information about fellow filmmakers Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Al-Ahmad, who had been detained days earlier. Soon after his arrest, Iranian authorities reactivated a six-year prison sentence that had originally been issued against him in 2010, along with a 20-year ban on filmmaking and international travel. The earlier case was linked to Panahi's attendance at the funeral of a student killed during the 2009 Green Movement protests and his reported attempt to make a film inspired by the events surrounding the uprising. Panahi was released from prison in February 2023 after undertaking a hunger strike. The filmmaker is regarded as one of Iran's most acclaimed directors and has won several major international awards during his career. His films have been widely recognized at leading film festivals around the world. (ANI)
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