In December of 2010, filmmaker Jafar Panahi is handed the harsh sentence of six years in prison and a 20-year ban on filmmaking. This decision is upheld on appeal in October of 2011.The US-based board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences released a statement saying:"The recent arrest of six Iranian filmmakers, the sentence of 'one year in jail and 90 lashes' to an actress just for playing a role in an acclaimed film, and the continued house arrest of Jafar Panahi, among others, is a situation that demands our serious attention."These filmmakers -- and others -- are artists, not political combatants. We join our colleagues around the world in calling unequivocally for these filmmakers' safety, release, and return to filmmaking. They deserve the same, full freedom of expression that the overwhelming majority of our members enjoy every day, no matter where they are from, no matter where they work, no matter what their beliefs."Read more here.
I, and other close friends, tried to convince him to revise his decision but he was persistent. He reasoned that if we retreat [from] our basic rights, in holding peaceful protests inside campuses, we [would] have to retreat [from] the worst level of dictatorship. He was reasoning that as a prominent student leader, his speech would give the courage to other students to stand for their rights. He used to say: “Freedom is not free.”
