Jafar Panahi Back In Crosshairs Of Iranian Authorities With Five-Year Sentence — SkimNews
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- Jafar Panahi was reportedly sentenced by Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court to five years and one month in prison, with confiscation of his possessions and assets and two-year social-media and travel bans.
- Mostafa Nili told Emtedad News Agency that Jafar Panahi discovered hearings were underway only after his bank accounts were frozen; despite being in Iran, he had not been officially summoned.
- Jafar Panahi and Nili learned from the Culture and Media Prosecutor’s Office’s Sentence Enforcement Unit that he had been convicted in absentia in a separate case, while Nili said three cases remained open against the director.
- Tehran Revolutionary Court had already imposed a one-year prison sentence and two-year travel ban in 2025 for “propaganda activities against the system”; the new sentence comes on top of that ruling.
- Jafar Panahi served seven months in Evin jail after a six-year sentence imposed in 2010 was reactivated in 2022; the earlier ruling also carried a 20-year filmmaking and travel ban, and he was released in February 2023 after a hunger strike.
- It Was Just An Accident was clandestinely shot and, after Jafar Panahi was permitted to travel to its Cannes premiere for the first time in 15 years in 2025, won the Palme d’Or and earned an Oscar nomination for Best International Feature Film as the French entry.
- Jafar Panahi publicly denounced the January 2026 crackdown on pro-democracy protests, in which tens of thousands are believed to have died, then returned home after his Oscar campaign duties.
Why it matters: For Jafar Panahi, the five-year-and-one-month term, asset confiscation and two-year travel and social-media bans materially narrow his freedom after his Oscar campaign. The timing contrasts with his February 2023 release and the 2025 permission to travel to Cannes, when authorities had appeared to soften their stance.
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