Iran has launched Mehdi Mahmoudian, Oscar-nominated co-writer with Jafar Panahi of Palme d’Or-winner “It Was Simply An Accident,” from Nowshahr Jail, as reported Tuesday.
Journalist Vida Rabbani and activist Abdollah Momeni, who had been arrested with Mahmoudian in January, had been additionally launched after 17 days of incarceration. Rabbani and Momeni, together with Mahmoudian, had signed the “Assertion of the Seventeen” letter, which condemned the actions of the Islamic Republic of Iran chief Ali Khamenei.
Over the previous 15 years, Filmmaker Jafar Panahi has been imprisoned, blindfolded, interrogated, and put beneath home arrest with a 20-year ban on making movies. The filmmaker, who spoke on the Writers Panel on the Santa Barbara Worldwide Movie Competition on Saturday, stated that in the course of the current protests in Iran, “the regime, solely inside two days, killed about 30 to 40,000 folks. … It’s clear that households went collectively into the protests with their kids, which means that individuals didn’t have any intentions for violence. It was purported to be peaceable. However when dictators attain their finish, they have a tendency to extend massacres, murders, and violence extra.”
Explaining what led to the current string of arrests, Panahi stated, “A gaggle of us, 17 of us, together with myself and different filmmakers, individuals who have received the Nobel Peace Prize, college professors, civil rights activists, and journalists received collectively and issued an announcement, and in that assertion, we put the blame on the best particular person within the nation, which means Ali Khamenei, as the only one that’s accountable for the massacres. After which they arrested 4 extra folks, and Mehdi Mahmoudian was one in every of them. They known as a couple of others into questioning and interrogations. A few of us even have sentences, together with myself. I’ve a one-year sentence to return to jail.”
Panahi plans to return to Iran after the Oscars. “I do know it could be obscure how my existence is shared with my colleagues, my relations, my mom, my siblings, and people of my pals who’re nonetheless in Iran and are banned from working,” he stated. “All of them encompass half of my being. This different half of me retains reminding me that if I don’t return, it’s as if I’ve turned my again (on) my family and friends, and I’ve left them alone. I imagine it’s that half of me that’s dominating, and it wins over me and my benefits and what’s greatest for me.”
The three prisoners had been reportedly launched on bail of $6.5 billion tomans (roughly $10,000) every, a conditional launch by the Revolutionary Court docket via their authorized counsel.
“It Was Simply An Accident” was co-written by Panahi, Mahmoudian, Nader Saeivar, and Shadmehr Rastin. Every of the screenwriters is nominated for Greatest Unique Screenplay. The movie can also be nominated for Greatest Worldwide Characteristic Movie.
Iranian author, human rights defender, political journalist, and blogger Mahmoudian beforehand served a five-year jail time period (2009-2014) on expenses of “mutiny in opposition to the regime” for his position in documenting complaints of abuse of detainees on the Kahrizak Detention Middle. The detention heart was closed in July 2009 after Mahmoudian and others documented the pervasive abuse. Mahmoudian additionally labored with the Middle for the Protection of Prisoners’ Rights. He has spent almost a decade of his life imprisoned for his civic and journalistic actions, an expertise explored within the screenplay for “It Was Simply an Accident.”
“It Was Simply an Accident” has received prizes from high movie critics teams, together with the New York Movie Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Movie Critics Affiliation, and the Nationwide Society of Movie Critics, and was nominated on the Golden Globes, and Critics Selection awards. “It Was Simply an Accident” additionally received three Gotham Awards, together with Greatest Worldwide Movie, Greatest Director, and Greatest Unique Screenplay.
Learn the assertion by 17 Activists that led to the three thee arrests under:
“Khamenei Is Accountable for These Horrific Occasions in Iran”
“Honorable, brave, and grieving folks of Iran,
“The mass and systematic killing of residents who bravely took to the streets to carry an finish to an illegitimate regime constitutes an organized state crime in opposition to humanity. The usage of stay ammunition in opposition to civilians, the killing of tens of hundreds, the arrest and persecution of tens of hundreds extra, the assault on the wounded, the obstruction of medical care, and the killing of injured protesters quantity to nothing lower than an assault on Iran’s nationwide safety and a betrayal of the nation.
“The first duty for these atrocities lies with Ali Khamenei, the chief of the Islamic Republic, and the repressive construction of the regime. This authoritarian equipment has relied on mass killings to make sure its survival whereas ignoring the essential and inalienable rights of residents—together with the elemental proper to hunt change within the political system. The systematic labeling of protesters as “seditionists,” “rioters,” “vandals,” or “terrorists affiliated with enemies” is a deliberate try to deny the Iranian folks their fundamental proper to self-determination.
“The bitter experiences of current many years have demonstrated that the principal impediment to rescuing Iran from its present disaster is Ali Khamenei and the regime of non secular despotism he leads. Every day this regime stays in energy, it deepens society’s collapse, spreads demise and destruction, and drives the nation additional towards irreversible smash. For years, Iran has been trapped in crises brought on by ill-conceived confrontational insurance policies, and at present, the chance of conflict—ensuing instantly from the continuation of this regime—looms over the nation greater than ever.
“At this vital historic second, when the way forward for Iran is darker than at another time, we reaffirm the pressing necessity of justice for these killed and the quick launch of all political prisoners. Whereas we acknowledge that unchecked energy doesn’t willingly submit to vary, we imagine that the one path to saving Iran lies within the prosecution of all those that ordered and carried out acts of repression and in bringing an finish to the un-republican and inhumane ruling regime.
“We name for the formation of a broad nationwide entrance to arrange a referendum and set up a constituent meeting, enabling all Iranians of all political opinions to take part in a democratic and clear course of to find out their political future.
“We warn that failure to pursue this path will condemn Iran to a devastating cycle of violence.
“Might the solar of freedom rise over our folks and our homeland.”
January 28, 2026
Signatures: Ghorban Behzadian-Nejad; Jafar Panahi; Amirsalar Davoudi; Vida Rabbani; Mohammad Rasoulof; Hossein Razagh; Nasrin Sotoudeh; Abolfazl Ghadyani; Hatam Ghaderi; Abbas Sadeghi; Manzar Zarrabi; Nargess Basis; Mehdi Mahmoudian; Saeed Madani; Abdollah Momeni; Mohammad Najafi; Sedigheh Vasmaghi