Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi released after hunger strike

PARIS—Acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi has been released on bail after starting a hunger strike to protest against his almost seven-month detention, supporters said on Friday, Feb. 3.

The director, a winner at all the big European film festivals, had been arrested months before the current anti-regime protests erupted. But his imprisonment became a symbol of the plight of artists speaking out against the authorities.

Panahi was released from Tehran’s Evin prison “two days after starting his hunger strike for freedom,” the US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) said on Twitter, while Iran’s reformist Shargh newspaper published an image of Panahi jubilantly emb…

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