URGENT!!! PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TO FREE IRANIAN FILMMAKER JAFAR PANAHI BEING HELD BY IRANIAN SECURITY FORCES

Coming from a country like the Philippines where many artists, among many other critical voices, are censored or silenced forever by the powers-that-be on a regular basis, and having experienced censorship in my own work as well, as a human being and fellow artist working in film, I express my solidarity with Mr. Panahi and the people of Iran whose basic human right to free speech is being curtailed and attacked by the current Iranian Government.

True artists are always the front lines of expressing truth and unfortunately they are also usually one of the first to receive bombardment from those who refuse to see and refuse to listen to the truth.

I condemn this blatant act of state terrorism and violation of human rights by the current Iranian government and hope that Mr. Panahi as well as all political prisoners in Iran be released unharmed.

Got an email at my gmail inbox and confirmed it at Jon Jost’s website:

More information can be found here at Jon Jost’s website.

“http://cinemaelectronica.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/tehran-urgent/”

The Online Petition can be found here

“http://www.petitiononline.com/FJP2310/petition.html”

thanks for informing that but i think it is not going to work. government doesn’t care about these things.

Vahid, you mean the Iranian government doesn’t care about online petitions????

There’s already a thread on this too but Panahi is an important filmmaker.

Iranian government doesn’t care about any petitions not just online one i know he is very important Iranian director but nowadays in Iran you can’t do anything civil

Right. They’ll shoot you in the throat on the streets.

that’s right it is what they do

—Just sign it. Least you can do, so-called cinephiles.

I’m the 1750th and think that’s not enough!

Both Shirin Ebadi, Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi was attending the Oslo Films from the South Festival in 2006, with their different perspectives on handling the challenges of the Iranian regime. From then things have become darker for each year. Lets use all efforts in protecting and supporting their future, making their work visible in all areas of society.

#1755.

I kind of want to spend a day on that sight

What would be great is if we could find contact info for that prosecutor fucker…. Probably hard to track down though.

The practical alternative to online petitions:

Just signed, this is something we should push the entire site to come on board, support is crucial and this is one way to unite our entire community. Members, filmmakers, writers, bloggers, everyone. Artists being censored is just not write and if it happens to one it happens to us all. Please support and help others, just look at it this way it can happen to any one of us or even a friend of yours. PLEASE SIGN!

I am with you!

Just signed.

1770 Signatures Total

What Vahid says above makes me sad and angry. No people deserves oppression by religious prigs.

just signed

Thank you everyone for signing and supporting this.

Just signed.

signed yesterday, hope everything goes well for Panahi.

Just signed.

Just signed, but I remain doubtful this will have any impact.

Doubt or not saying something and giving your support counts for something!

I am off to the library to check out Mirrors and request his other films.

Done.

Signed.

Please forgive me for pissing a little on good intentions, but this petition has about the same weight as an online poll has. There’s no way to verify if the signers are all, in fact, separate individuals. Furthermore, what Vahid says is difficult to refute. Signing the petition certainly does feel good. I feel good registering my protest. I wish there were a more concrete action we could take or support that would be assured of having actual impact on the Iranian government..

Any ideas anyone?

No, Chris…but I hope someone else does!

Is he a terrorist?

The U.S. government does not have diplomatic relations with Iran, so there’s not really a good way to do anything that would officially register with the Iranian government.