Iran has sentenced acclaimed filmmaker Jafar Panahi to five years and one month in prison after he returned to the country earlier this year, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.
A Tehran court also ordered the confiscation of Panahi's "movable and immovable assets," his lawyer, Mostafa Nili, said in an interview with the news website Emtedad. Nili did not specify the charges on which Panahi was convicted. However, the director, who returned to Iran in March following the outbreak of war with Israel and the United States, was previously convicted of "propaganda activities against the regime."
Jafar Panahi
(Photo: Reuters)
The sentence was handed down Monday, according to a friend of Panahi and an Iranian activist living in Europe who spoke to the AP by phone. The activist, Hossein Razzagh, said he spoke with the director Monday evening after the sentence was issued and confirmed that Panahi had not been arrested. The sentence can be appealed, but "all his bank accounts have now been frozen," Razzagh added.
In previous interviews with foreign media outlets, Panahi criticized Iran's leadership and condemned violence against anti-government protesters. He is considered one of the most acclaimed Iranian filmmakers of his generation and has continued making films despite being repeatedly imprisoned, barred from leaving the country and placed under house arrest by Iranian authorities over the past 20 years.
Panahi secretly filmed his movie It Was Just an Accident, which won the prestigious Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, in Iran after serving seven months in prison. His imprisonment ended only in 2023, after he went on a hunger strike.