Dissident Director Rasoulof Sentenced to Eight Years, Flogging in State 'Revenge'

Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof has been sentenced to eight years in prison and flogging in what opponents of the regime have condemned as punitive “revenge.”

The dissident leading director is being punished for “the signing of statements and the making of films and documentaries” which it is claimed are “collusion with the intention of committing a crime against the country's security”.

Rasoulof’s lawyer Babak Paknia posted on X (formerly know as Twitter) that the director has been sentenced to eight years imprisonment – of which five years are “applicable” – as well as flogging, a fine and the confiscation of property.

The Iranian Independent Filmmakers Association (IIFA) has condemned the sentence.

A statement published on the IIFA's Telegram channel on Wednesday said that the verdict once again indicates that the Iranian "legal system is nothing more than an instrument of revenge" against political dissidents.

"A regime that is built on the suffering of people is destined to crumble soon," the statement read.

The verdict is the latest in a series of harsh sentences handed out to Rasoulof since he was first jailed in 2010 for six years for creating anti-regime content and banned from making films for 20 years. The jail sentence was reduced to one year on appeal.

Despite the ban, he produced There Is No Evil, a drama that captured Iranian society under the Islamic Republic regime and won the Berlinale Golden Bear in 2020.

In 2022, Rasoulof was arrested after signing a letter saying military and security forces "have become tools for cracking down on people" and calling on them not to suppress protesters.

Rasoulof's latest film The Seed Of The Sacred Fig will be screened this month at Cannes.