Iran sentences acclaimed film director Jafar Panahi to new prison term after his return home

CAIRO (AP) — Iran has sentenced acclaimed director Jafar Panahi to five years and one month in prison, following his return to the country earlier this year, after the start of the U.S. and Israeli attacks on the Islamic Republic.

The Tehran court also ordered the confiscation of Panahi’s “movable and immovable assets,” his lawyer Mostafa Nili told the reformist news site Emtedad in an interview late Tuesday.

Nili did not say what Panahi was convicted of. But the director, who returned to Iran in March, had been previously convicted of “propaganda activities against the system.”

Panahi’s sentence was handed down on Monday, a friend and an Iranian activist based in Europe told The Associated Press over the phone. Hossein Razzagh said he spoke with Panahi on Monday evening after the sentencing and the filmmaker had not been detained.

The sentence can be appealed but “now all of his bank accounts have been blocked,” Razzagh added.

Panahi has spoken out against Iran’s leadership and condemned violence against anti-government protesters, in past interviews with foreign media.

Panahi is among the most celebrated of contemporary Iranian directors and has continued making movies despite repeatedly being imprisoned, banned from traveling and put under house arrest by Iranian authorities over the past 20 years.

He filmed “It Was Just an Accident” clandestinely in Iran following a seven-month stint in prison that only ended in 2023 once he went on a hunger strike.