Holy Spider actor Zar Amir Ebrahimi leads the call for action against Iran at the Gothenburg Film Festival

Holy Spider Star czar Amir Ebrahimi led a protest at the Gothenburg Film Festival on Tuesday night in support of the Iranian people and artists imprisoned by the country’s political regime.

Ebrahimi, who heads the festival’s official competition jury this year, took the stage before the screening of subtract by Iranian filmmaker Mani Haghighi and a statement read from an artist group called the Art Culture Action Association.

During her speech, Amir Ebrahimi encouraged viewers to sign the statement, calling on the audience to express their support and solidarity with the Iranian people against the political regime’s actions.

“We, artists, writers, academics and cultural workers from different disciplines and different countries, support the call of our Iranian colleagues to stand in solidarity with their fight against the oppressive and despotic Islamic State in Iran,” Ebrahimi said during her speech. said.

“We, the undersigned, recognize and unreservedly support the courage of all women, men and children in Iran in their struggle for basic human rights and their clearly expressed desire to renew the country’s social contract.”

The actress was joined on stage by co-judges Sofie Gråbøl, Nahid Persson and Gizem Erdogan, as well as Swedish-Iranian filmmakers and Gothenburg artistic director Jonas Holmberg.

According to a list published by the Art Culture Action Association, 173 artists, filmmakers and art students have been tortured, imprisoned or released on bail since the revolutionary movement began in the country. Ebrahimi ended the protest and read aloud all 173 names.

“We ask for their immediate and unconditional release, the overturning of unjustified and group convictions, the abolition of the death penalty and the investigation by international institutions of torture and murders committed in prisons,” Ebrahimi added.

by Haghighi subtract, The movie of the night is a double thriller starring Taraneh Alidoosti. Alidoosti was released by Iranian authorities earlier this month after posting bail. Alidoosti was arrested on December 17, 2022, days after she criticized the Iranian state’s use of the death penalty against protesters.

Ebrahimi fled Iran in 2008 and faced jail time after an intimate video of her and her partner was leaked online. In recent months, the actress has voiced her support for freedom protests across Iran sparked by the September death of 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini in police custody.

You can read the full statement below.

Urgent declaration of solidarity with Iran
International action is urgently needed to stop further state violence against the Iranian people

Led by women, Iranians from all walks of life have shown determination to oppose state violence in the past 80 days since the assassination of 22-year-old woman Zhina Mahsa Amini by Iran’s Islamic State. What began as a protest against mandatory hijab and decades of systematic human rights abuses has now evolved into the Woman, Life, Freedom movement calling for an end to theocratic rule of an unelected clerical system in Iran.

We, artists, writers, academics and cultural workers from different disciplines and different countries, support the call of our Iranian colleagues to stand in solidarity with their fight against the oppressive and despotic Islamic State in Iran. We, the undersigned, recognize and unreservedly support the courage of all women, men and children in Iran in their struggle for basic human rights and their clearly expressed desire to renew the country’s social contract.

We express our deep concern not only for our arts and culture colleagues and students who have made their demands known through various actions and open letters, including a statement recently signed by nearly 6,000 Iranian artists and scientists, but for citizens from all over the world. Country facing increasingly brutal, violent and deadly government measures, kidnappings, enforced disappearances, detentions and multiple forms of physical, psychological and sexual abuse, torture and public threats of mass executions.

We recognize that recent terrorism is not an isolated event. Over the past 44 years, the Islamic State machinery has exploited a variety of social and cultural injustices, including the oppression of ethnic, religious and sexual minorities, as well as legally sanctioned misogyny, homophobia and xenophobia. Since its inception, Iran’s theocratic legal system, controlled by the Supreme Leader and backed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its network of oligarchs, has led to the extermination of those who oppose it. These acts must be recognized as crimes against humanity; Their perpetrators must appear before international courts.

Call the international community of artists, writers and academics

Unanimously and in support of our Iranian colleagues; We, artists, writers, academics and cultural practitioners from around the world, are committed to doing our best to:

– Boycott government institutions of the Islamic State of Iran and its secret allies and prevent their presence in international arenas of art, culture and education;

– against regime apologists who cover up anti-imperialist discourses in the West or elsewhere in the world to distract attention from well-documented state violence against the population;

– to support our colleagues and collaborators who oppose the atrocities and human rights violations in Iran by using our intellectual and cultural influence and skills;

– Build support networks for dissidents and those who are attacked, intimidated or threatened by the regime;

– Raising awareness of the crimes against humanity committed by the Islamic regime in Iran.

solidary,