Jafar Panahi Sentenced to Five Years in Absentia

Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi has been sentenced in absentia to five years and one month in prison by Branch 26 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, according to his lawyer, Mostafa Nili. The ruling also orders the confiscation of Panahi’s assets and bars him from using social media and traveling abroad for two years, Nili said. Nili said Panahi and his lawyer learned of the judgment after Panahi’s bank accounts were frozen. He said Panahi had not been officially summoned to a hearing. The filmmaker is in Iran, according to his lawyer, who said Panahi has three open legal cases in the country. The charges underlying the new sentence have not been publicly clarified. Reports of the ruling trace to Nili’s account, relayed through the Iranian news agency Emtedad. The reports do not establish whether or when the sentence will be enforced. The new judgment is separate from a one-year prison sentence imposed in December 2025 over propaganda-related activity. That sentence was upheld on appeal, according to reports. The two rulings therefore carry separate prison terms, while the latest ruling adds its own asset confiscation order and two-year restrictions. Panahi returned to Iran in...