News

TEHRAN (AFP) – The wife of top Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi told AFP on Tuesday that she has been unable to see her husband in Tehran's notorious Evin prison since his arrest earlier this month.

Fifty Iranian filmmakers and artists, in a signed letter released on Tuesday, urged the authorities to release Panahi, a news agency reported.

"Ever since he was apprehended, I have managed to talk to him twice. I went to Evin to meet him last Thursday, but was not allowed to meet," Tahereh Saeedi said of the Tehran jail where her husband is being held.

Media reports have said Panahi was arrested for making a film about the unrest which rocked the Islamic republic after last year's disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But his wife denied these reports, saying "the film was being shot inside the house and had nothing to do with the regime."