Iran arrests 3rd outspoken filmmaker in escalating crackdown

By ISABEL DEBRE
Associated Press
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iranian authorities have arrested an internationally renowned filmmaker, the third Iranian director to be locked up in less than a week as the government escalates a crackdown on the country’s celebrated cinema industry. Jafar Panahi, one of the country’s best-known dissident filmmakers, had gone to the prosecutor’s office in Tehran to check on the cases of his two colleagues detained last week when security forces scooped him up. That’s according to reports in several Iranian newspapers on Tuesday. The Cannes Film Festival condemned the arrests as part of a worrisome crackdown on the arts in Iran. The increased pressure on filmmakers follows a wave of arrests in recent months as tensions escalate between Iran’s hard-line government and the West.