Punishment with lashes
Berlinale winner Rassulof sentenced to prison in Iran
May 8, 2024, 10:03 p.m
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The Iranian filmmaker Rassulof was only released from prison at the beginning of last year and is now being sentenced to another long prison sentence. The critical director will now be behind bars – and whipped – for at least five years.
Well-known Iranian filmmaker and Berlinale winner Mohammed Rassulof has reportedly been sentenced to several years in prison. As lawyer Babak Paknia wrote on Platform X, a court in the capital Tehran sentenced the 52-year-old to eight years in prison, of which five years can be executed. In addition, the director should be punished with lashes.
According to the defense attorney, the judiciary justified the strict sentence with violations of national security. Rassulof will also have to pay a fine and confiscation of property was also mentioned. There was initially no confirmation of the verdict from the Iranian judiciary. Some Iranian media picked up the lawyer’s post.
Just over a year ago, Rassulof was banned from leaving the country. According to activists, this was intended to prevent the critical director from participating in the Cannes Film Festival. The filmmaker was only released from Tehran’s notorious Ewin Prison in February 2023 after around seven months in prison. Before his imprisonment, he had made critical comments about the collapse of a shopping arcade in the southwestern Iranian city of Abadan, which resulted in many deaths.
Rassulof, who received the Golden Bear at the Berlinale in 2020 for his film “There is no evil,” is an extremely critical filmmaker. Despite being banned from working for many years, he always managed to make films. He lived alternately in Tehran and Hamburg.