Iran Releases ‘The Salesman’ Star Taraneh Alidoosti, Who Was Held Over Protests

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran launched a distinguished actress from an Oscar-winning movie on Wednesday, practically three weeks after she was jailed for criticizing a crackdown on anti-government protests, native reviews mentioned.

Iran’s semi-official ISNA information company mentioned Taraneh Alidoosti, the 38-year-old star of Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar-winning “The Salesman,” was launched on bail. Her mom, Nadere Hakimelahi, had earlier mentioned she could be launched in a submit on Instagram.

After her launch from the infamous Evin Jail in Tehran on Wednesday, Alidoosti posed with flowers amongst her associates. No additional particulars have been launched about her case.

Alidoosti was amongst a number of Iranian celebrities to precise help for the nationwide protests and criticize the authorities’ violent clampdown on dissent. She had posted no less than three messages in help of the protests on Instagram earlier than her account was disabled.

One message had expressed solidarity with the primary man to be executed on prices linked to the protests, which had been triggered by the loss of life of a lady in police custody and have escalated into widespread requires the overthrow of Iran’s ruling clerics.

The protests mark one of many largest challenges to the Islamic Republic because it was established after the 1979 revolution. Safety forces have used reside ammunition, chicken shot, tear gasoline and batons to disperse protesters, in keeping with rights teams.

Mohsen Shekari was executed Dec. 9 after being charged by an Iranian courtroom with blocking a road in Tehran and attacking a member of the nation’s safety forces with a machete. Per week later, Iran executed a second prisoner, Majidreza Rahnavard, by public hanging. He had been accused of stabbing two members of the paramilitary Basij militia, which is main the crackdown.

Activists say no less than a dozen individuals have been sentenced to loss of life in closed-door hearings over prices linked to the protests.

″His identify was Mohsen Shekari,” Alidoosti wrote on an account with some 8 million followers earlier than her arrest. “Each worldwide group who’s watching this bloodshed and never taking motion, is a shame to humanity.”

No less than 516 protesters have been killed and over 19,000 individuals have been arrested, in keeping with Human Rights Activists in Iran, a gaggle that has carefully monitored the unrest. Iranian authorities haven’t supplied an official rely of these killed or detained.

Hengameh Ghaziani and Katayoun Riahi, two different well-known Iranian actresses, had been arrested in November for expressing solidarity with protesters on social media. Voria Ghafouri, an Iranian soccer star, was additionally arrested that month for ’’insulting the nationwide soccer workforce and propagandizing towards the federal government.” All three have been launched.

The protests started in mid-September, when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died after being arrested by Iran’s morality police for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict gown code. Ladies have performed a number one position within the protests, with many publicly stripping off the obligatory Islamic scarf, often known as the hijab.

The protesters say they’re fed up after many years of political and social repression. One of many foremost slogans has been “Dying to the dictator,” referring to Iran’s 83-year-old Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has held the nation’s highest workplace for greater than three many years.

Iranian officers blame the protests on the U.S. and different international powers. State-linked media have highlighted assaults on safety forces, whereas authorities have imposed heavy restrictions on protection of the demonstrations, together with periodically reducing off web entry.

Khamenei, who has mentioned little concerning the protests, spoke about Islamic gown on Wednesday in a gathering with girls, saying the hijab is critical however that those that don’t “utterly observe” the observe “shouldn’t be accused of being non-religious or towards the revolution.”

Even earlier than the protests, many Iranian girls wore the scarf loosely, and authorities typically eased off on imposing it, particulary in the course of the presidency of Hassan Rouhani, a relative average who ruled from 2013 to 2021. His successor, the hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi, had moved to tighten the restrictions.

Alidoosti had beforehand criticised the Iranian authorities and its police pressure earlier than this 12 months’s protests.

In June 2020, she was given a suspended five-month jail sentence after she criticized the police on Twitter in 2018 for assaulting a lady who had eliminated her scarf.

Different well-known films Alidoosti has starred in embrace “The Lovely Metropolis” and “About Elly.”