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Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof sentenced to eight years in prison and flogging

Rasoulof is one of Iran’s leading directors and his film The Seed of the Sacred Fig is due to premiere at Cannes film festival

Writing on X, Babak Paknia, a human rights lawyer representing Rasoulof, said that the judgment was confirmed in a court of appeal and the case had now been sent for enforcement. Another incarceration followed in July 2022, after Rasoulof posted an appeal urging Iranian security forces to stop using weapons during protests prompted by a building collapse in the south-western city of Abadan. Rasoulof’s films stand alongside those of fellow countrymen Abbas Kiarostami, Asghar Farhadi and Jafar Panahi in the critical acclaim in which they are held outside Iran.

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