Dissident Iranian Film-Maker Jafar Panahi Arrested

In this file photo taken on August 30, 2010 Iranian film director Jafar Panahi on a balcony overlooking Tehran during an interview with AFP. (AFP)
In this file photo taken on August 30, 2010 Iranian film director Jafar Panahi on a balcony overlooking Tehran during an interview with AFP. (AFP)
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Dissident Iranian Film-Maker Jafar Panahi Arrested

In this file photo taken on August 30, 2010 Iranian film director Jafar Panahi on a balcony overlooking Tehran during an interview with AFP. (AFP)
In this file photo taken on August 30, 2010 Iranian film director Jafar Panahi on a balcony overlooking Tehran during an interview with AFP. (AFP)

Award-winning dissident Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi has been arrested, the third director to be detained in less than a week, the Mehr news agency said Monday.

Panahi, 62, won a Golden Bear at the Berlin film festival in 2015.

"Jafar Panahi has been arrested today (Monday) when he went to the prosecutor's office to follow up on the situation of another film-maker, Mohammad Rasoulof," Mehr reported.

State news agency IRNA had reported late Friday that Rasoulof, also an award winning film-maker, had been arrested along with colleague Mostafa Aleahmad.

Panahi has won a slew of awards at international festivals, including the top prize in Berlin for "Taxi" in 2015, and best screenplay at Cannes for his film "Three Faces" in 2018.

But since being convicted of "propaganda against the system" in 2010, following his support for anti-government protests and a string of films that critiqued modern Iran, he has been barred from leaving the country to pick up any of these awards.

Rasoulof, 50, won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2020 with his film "There Is No Evil" but was likewise unable to accept the award in person as he was barred from leaving Iran.

Rasoulof and Aleahmad were arrested over events relating to a deadly building collapse of the Metropol building in the city of Abadan, an event which sparked angry protests, official news agency IRNA said.

"In the midst of the heart-breaking incident in Abadan's Metropol, (the filmmakers) were involved in inciting unrest and disrupting the psychological security of society," IRNA said.

The 10-storey Metropol building, that was under construction in southwestern Khuzestan province, collapsed on May 23, killing 43 people.

It sparked demonstrations in solidarity with victims' families.

Demonstrators demanded that "incompetent officials" responsible for the tragedy be prosecuted and punished, while many faced tear gas, warning shots and arrests by the police.

A group of Iranian filmmakers led by Rasoulof published an open letter calling on the security forces to "lay down their arms" in the face of outrage over the "corruption, theft, inefficiency and repression" surrounding the Abadan collapse.

Organizers of the Berlin film festival on Saturday protested against the arrests of Rasoulof and Aleahmad and called for their release.

Rasoulof's passport had been confiscated after his 2017 film "A Man of Integrity" premiered at Cannes, where it won the top prize in the Un Certain Regard section of the festival.



Russia’s Putin Apologizes to Azerbaijan over ‘Tragic’ Airliner Crash

 In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin holds a Security Council meeting via videoconference in Moscow on December 28, 2024. (AFP)
In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin holds a Security Council meeting via videoconference in Moscow on December 28, 2024. (AFP)
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Russia’s Putin Apologizes to Azerbaijan over ‘Tragic’ Airliner Crash

 In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin holds a Security Council meeting via videoconference in Moscow on December 28, 2024. (AFP)
In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin holds a Security Council meeting via videoconference in Moscow on December 28, 2024. (AFP)

President Vladimir Putin on Saturday apologized to Azerbaijan's leader for what the Kremlin called a "tragic incident" over Russia in which an Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashed after Russian air defenses were fired against Ukrainian drones.

The extremely rare publicized apology from Putin was the closest Moscow had come to accepting some blame for Wednesday's disaster, although the Kremlin statement did not say Russia had shot down the plane, only noting that a criminal case had been opened.

Flight J2-8243, en route from Baku to the Chechen capital Grozny, crash-landed on Wednesday near Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from southern Russia, where Ukrainian drones were reported to be attacking several cities. At least 38 people were killed.

Four sources with knowledge of the preliminary findings of Azerbaijan's investigation told Reuters on Thursday that Russian air defenses had mistakenly shot the airliner down. Passengers said they heard a loud bang outside the plane.

Putin called President Ilham Aliyev and "apologized for the tragic incident that occurred in Russian airspace and once again expressed his deep and sincere condolences to the families of the victims and wished a speedy recovery to the injured," the Kremlin said.

"At that time, Grozny, Mozdok and Vladikavkaz were being attacked by Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, and Russian air defense systems repelled these attacks."

The Kremlin said "civilian and military specialists" were being questioned.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy also said he had called Aliyev to offer condolences, and in his statement on the X platform demanded that Russia provide "clear explanations".

OBJECTS SMASHED THROUGH AIRPLANE'S FUSELAGE

Azerbaijan for its part said Aliyev had noted to Putin that the plane had been "subjected to external physical and technical interference in Russian airspace, resulting in a complete loss of control and redirection to the Kazakh city of Aktau".

Until Saturday, Russia's last working day before a long New Year holiday, the Kremlin had said it was improper to comment on the incident before official investigations were concluded.

The Embraer jet had flown from Azerbaijan's capital Baku to Grozny, in Russia's southern Chechnya region, where the incident occurred, and then travelled, badly damaged, another 280 miles (450 km) across the Caspian Sea.

Footage shot by passengers before the plane crashed showed oxygen masks down and people wearing life jackets. Later videos showed bloodied and bruised passengers climbing out of the wreckage. There were 29 survivors.

Baku cited injuries from objects that had penetrated the aircraft’s fuselage from outside and testimonies from survivors as evidence of "external physical and technical interference".

The crash underscored the risks to civil aviation even when aircraft are flying hundreds of miles from a war zone, especially when Ukraine has deployed drones en masse to try to hit back at Russia behind the front lines .

Russia uses electronic jamming to confuse the geolocation and communication systems of Ukrainian drones, which it also targets with air defense systems.

In 2020, Iranian Revolutionary Guards mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian airliner, killing all 176 on board.

And in 2014, Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine, with the loss of 298 passengers and crew, by what Dutch investigators said was a Russian BUK missile system. Russia denied involvement.