Some things never change. If it’s a day ending in a “y” you can be sure there is more bad news coming out of Iran. It’s like an Islamist Groundhog Day of horror shows in endless loop. Outside Iran itself, no one is becoming more aware of that self-evident reality than the Cannes Film Festival and the world film community. On this very day last year, internationally renowned Iranian film director Jafar Panahi was locked away without official charge in a crypt-like solitary confinement cell in Evin prison’s notorious Ward 209. In response, Hollywood’s top filmmakers issued a petition calling for Mr. Panahi’s release last April. Cannes soon followed in calling for Mr. Panahi’s release in May.
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That event is perhaps best remembered by Mr. Panahi’s empty jury chair and actress Juliette Binoche’s tearful plea. Mr. Panahi responded to Cannes’ supportive efforts to liberate him by smuggling out a thank you note from Evin. The regime’s response to that heinous offense was to sentence Mr. Panahi to an additional two months in Evin, followed by a Gestapo-like raid on his home to terrorize his family into media silence. Yet the international pressure seems to have worked then, as Mr. Panahi was freed from prison on May 25. Mr. Panahi’s liberty turned out to be short-lived. In December, Mr. Panahi was convicted of “propaganda against the system” by an Islamist kangaroo court in Tehran and sentenced to six years in prison.
Mr. Panahi was also banned from the film arts and leaving the country for 20 years. In effect, the regime issued Mr. Panahi an artistic death sentence. This time, however, Mr. Panahi had notable company. Director Mohammad Rasoulof, who had campaigned for Mr. Panahi’s freedom last year from outside Iran, was issued a matching sentence for his alleged crimes against the Islamist state. Both filmmakers are currently out on bail awaiting appeal. So once again, Cannes is neck-deep in campaigning for Mr. Panahi’s exoneration as well as Mr. Rasoulof’s now. The organization just issued a statement linked to a petition containing 17,000+ signatures that reads like a who’s who of the film world.
It remains to be seen what the Islamist regime’s response will be, but some key outside factors are now in play that weren’t last year that may harden the regime’s stance this time around. The Ahmadinejad regime’s response to the Arab Spring has been to let a crimson tide of blood at home, exemplified by its brutal repressions of the 25 Bahman protests on Valentine’s Day and an increase in the rolling executions of political prisoners. Recently the regime claimed the bloody crown of world’s most murderous state for 2010, yet the official numbers do not include de facto executions or the secret dumping of mutilated bodies of political prisoners in the Iranian desert. It’s even worse this year. Much worse.
Only time and events will determine the filmmakers’ fates, and events are moving at a very fast clip. Unlike past uprisings, the Green Revolution isn’t collapsing under the regime’s bloody iron boots as other failed rebellions have. It is also noteworthy, based on my interactions with hundreds of Iranians the past two years, that frustration with the regime is now boiling over and reaching a tipping point. It is becoming more and more apparent to freedom-loving Iranians that the only sure way to end the Islamist Groundhog Day of terror in Iran for Jafar Panahi, Mohammad Rasoulof, Mohammad Nourizad, Ahmad Zeidabadi, Nasrin Sotoudeh, Habibollah Latifi and all the other prisoners of conscience in Iran is real change that results in the lawful ruling Iran and the criminals in jail instead of the other way around, as it has been for thirty-two long hellish years under the murderous Khomeinists.
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