Iranupdated 1h ago3 min read
Archive photo · 24 May 2025Tehran Court Sentences Filmmaker Jafar Panahi In Absentia To Five Years
9 Western Mainstream5 Other3 Asian3 Other source typesPhoto: Kevin Payravi / WikiPortraits, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Cropped for layout
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Tehran Revolutionary Court, in absentia, sentenced Panahi to five years and one month in prison. Confiscation of all movable and immovable assets ordered.
Five Years in Absentia
A Tehran court sentenced filmmaker Jafar Panahi in absentia to five years in prison, ordering two years without leaving the country or publishing on social media and confiscating his assets and freezing his accounts. Panahi’s lawyer Mostafa Nili told Isna and the reformist newspaper ‘Etemad’ that the sentence appeared linked to a new case. Tehran Revolutionary Court’s Branch 26 sentenced Panahi to 5 years and 1 month in prison, confiscated all his movable and immovable properties, banned him from social media activities for two years, and prohibited him from leaving the country.
Mostafa Nili told Emtedad that Panahi learned of the ruling after his bank accounts were blocked, and Nili said the judicial file showed Panahi as outside the country even though Panahi returned to Iran on March 30, 2026. ABC said Panahi had already spent a long time in prison and had several open cases against him under the Tehran regime, while the new verdict continued the long legal battle facing the director.
Bank Accounts Frozen
Mostafa Nili told Emtedad that Panahi discovered court hearings were underway against him only after his bank accounts were frozen, and Nili said Panahi had not been officially summoned for hearings even though he is in the country. RTVE.es quoted Nili saying, "Room 26 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court has sentenced my client to five years and one month in prison," and Nili said the court also barred Panahi from leaving the country and using social networks for two years. Deadline said Nili and Panahi visited the Sentence Enforcement Unit of the Culture and Media Prosecutor’s Office, where they learned that Panahi had been convicted “in absentia” in a separate case.
ANF said Panahi learned of the ruling after his bank accounts were blocked, and Nili said the sentence was issued in Panahi’s absence. Deadline said Panahi returned home immediately after the March 15 ceremony for the 2026 Academy Awards in which It Was Just An Accident was nominated and has not left since.
Long Legal Pressure
The new sentence added to Panahi’s prior conviction for “propaganda against the regime,” with ABC saying Panahi spent time behind bars for offenses against the State and was released in 2010. ANF said Panahi previously had been sentenced to one year in prison in another case for charges of “propaganda against the regime,” and ANF said Panahi was also banned from traveling for two years and forbidden from participating in political and social organizations. DIE WELT said the Iranian judiciary had already sentenced Panahi to one year in prison for “propaganda against the system,” and it said a court cited Panahi’s secretly shot film A Simple Event as the central evidence.
“Panahi previously had been sentenced to one year in prison in another case for charges of ‘propaganda against the regime.’”
ABC said Panahi won the Palme d’Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival with his movie ‘A Simple Accident,’ which also received two Oscar nominations this year, and ABC said his film ‘Taxi Tehran’ (2015) brought him to the world’s attention. ANF said Panahi currently faces three separate legal proceedings, while Deadline said the new sentence comes on top of a separate one-year prison sentence and a two-year travel meted out by the Iranian Branch 26 court in 2025.
