Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

3 days ago

Trump Says He’s Willing to Let Migrant Farm Laborers Stay in US

3 days ago

US Electric Vehicle Tax Breaks Will Expire on Sept. 30

4 days ago

Eyeing Arctic Dominance, Trump Bill Earmarks $8.6 Billion for US Coast Guard Icebreakers

4 days ago

Trump’s Sweeping Tax-Cut and Spending Bill Wins Congressional Approval

4 days ago

Americans Celebrate Their Independence With Record-Breaking Travel Numbers

4 days ago

US Supreme Court to Decide Legality of Transgender School Sports Bans

4 days ago

Nvidia Set to Become the World’s Most Valuable Company in History

4 days ago

Poll: 41% in US ‘Extremely Proud’ to Be American, Near Historic Low

4 days ago
Iran Releases Oscar-Winning Film Actress Held Over Protests
gvw_ap_news
By Associated Press
Published 3 years ago on
January 4, 2023

Share

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Iran released a prominent actress from an Oscar-winning film on Wednesday, nearly three weeks after she was jailed for criticizing a crackdown on anti-government protests, local reports said.

Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency said Taraneh Alidoosti, the 38-year-old star of Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar-winning 2016 film, “The Salesman,” was released on bail. Her mother, Nadere Hakimelahi, had earlier said she would be released in a post on Instagram.

After her release from the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran on Wednesday, Alidoosti posed with bunches of flowers, surrounded by friends. No further details have been released about her case.

Iranian prominent actress Taraneh Alidoosti, center, holds bunches of flowers as she poses for a photo among her friends after being released from Evin prison in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023. (Gisoo Faghfouri, Sharghdaily, via AP)

Alidoosti was among several Iranian celebrities to express support for the nationwide protests and criticize the authorities’ violent clampdown on dissent. She had posted at least three messages in support of the protests on Instagram before her account was disabled.

One message had expressed solidarity with the first man to be executed on charges linked to the protests, which were triggered by the death of a woman in police custody and have escalated into widespread calls for the overthrow of Iran’s ruling clerics.

The protests mark one of the biggest challenges to the Islamic Republic since it was established after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Security forces have used live ammunition, bird shot, tear gas and batons to disperse protesters, according to rights groups.

Mohsen Shekari was executed Dec. 9 after being charged by an Iranian court with blocking a street in Tehran and attacking a member of the country’s security forces with a machete. A 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 leading the crackdown.

Activists say at least a dozen people have been sentenced to death in closed-door hearings over charges linked to the protests.

″His name was Mohsen Shekari,” Alidoosti wrote on an account with some 8 million followers before her arrest. “Every international organization who is watching this bloodshed and not taking action, is a disgrace to humanity.”

The Iranian reports on Alidoosti’s release did not say whether she has been charged with anything or if she will stand trial. It was also unclear whether she faces travel restrictions as part of the terms of her release.

At least 516 protesters have been killed and over 19,000 people have been arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has closely monitored the unrest. Iranian authorities have not provided an official count of those killed or detained.

Hengameh Ghaziani and Katayoun Riahi, two other famous Iranian actresses, were arrested in November for expressing solidarity with protesters on social media. Voria Ghafouri, an Iranian soccer star, was also arrested that month for ’’insulting the national soccer team and propagandizing against the government.” All three have been released.

The protests began 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 dress code. Women have played a leading role in the protests, with many publicly stripping off the compulsory Islamic headscarf, known as the hijab.

The protesters say they are fed up after decades of political and social repression. One of the main slogans has been “Death to the dictator,” referring to Iran’s 83-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has held the country’s highest office for more than three decades.

Iranian officials blame the protests on the U.S. and other foreign powers. State-linked media have highlighted attacks on security forces, while authorities have imposed heavy restrictions on coverage of the demonstrations, including periodically cutting off internet access.

Khamenei, who has said little about the protests, spoke about Islamic dress on Wednesday in a meeting with women, saying the hijab is necessary but that those who do not “completely observe” the practice “should not be accused of being non-religious or against the revolution.”

Even before the protests, many Iranian women wore the headscarf loosely, and authorities sometimes eased off on enforcing it, particulary during the presidency of Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate who governed from 2013 to 2021. His successor, the hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi, had moved to tighten the restrictions.

Alidoosti had previously criticised the Iranian government and its police force before this year’s protests.

In June 2020, she was given a suspended five-month prison sentence after she criticized the police on Twitter in 2018 for assaulting a woman who had removed her headscarf.

In “The Salesman,” she played a woman whose relationship with her husband fractures after she is sexually assaulted in their apartment. The story unfolds against the backdrop of a local staging of Arthur Miller’s classic play, “Death of a Salesman,” in which the woman and her husband are cast as the main characters.

Other well-known movies Alidoosti has starred in include “The Beautiful City” and “About Elly.”

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

How Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Will Make China Great Again

DON'T MISS

What’s Caitlin Clark Worth to the WNBA? A Lot More Than Her $78,066 Salary.

DON'T MISS

Trump to Sign Tax-Cut and Spending Bill in July 4 Ceremony

DON'T MISS

Madre Fire Spurs Evacuations Across 3 Counties, Grows to More Than 70,000 Acres

DON'T MISS

Clovis, Sanger, Madera, and Bass Lake Will Light the Sky With Fireworks Shows Tonight

DON'T MISS

Oil Dips Ahead of Expected OPEC+ Output Increase

DON'T MISS

613 Killed at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites, Near Humanitarian Covoys, Says UN

DON'T MISS

Fresno County Authorities Investigating Suspicious Death of Transient Man

DON'T MISS

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

DON'T MISS

Israeli Military Kills 20 in Gaza as Trump Awaits Hamas Reply to Truce Proposal

UP NEXT

What’s Caitlin Clark Worth to the WNBA? A Lot More Than Her $78,066 Salary.

UP NEXT

Trump to Sign Tax-Cut and Spending Bill in July 4 Ceremony

UP NEXT

Madre Fire Spurs Evacuations Across 3 Counties, Grows to More Than 70,000 Acres

UP NEXT

Clovis, Sanger, Madera, and Bass Lake Will Light the Sky With Fireworks Shows Tonight

UP NEXT

Oil Dips Ahead of Expected OPEC+ Output Increase

UP NEXT

613 Killed at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites, Near Humanitarian Covoys, Says UN

UP NEXT

Fresno County Authorities Investigating Suspicious Death of Transient Man

UP NEXT

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

UP NEXT

Israeli Military Kills 20 in Gaza as Trump Awaits Hamas Reply to Truce Proposal

UP NEXT

Valley Crime Stoppers’ Most Wanted Person of the Day: Rachelle Maria Blanco

Trump Criticized for Using Antisemitic ‘Shylock’ to Describe Bankers

39 minutes ago

Iran President Says Open to Dialogue With US, Accuses Israel of Assassination Attempt

49 minutes ago

Shy but Sweet Field Survivor, Poppy the Pup, Now Up for Adoption

58 minutes ago

Valley Crime Stoppers’ Most Wanted Person of the Day: Douglas Wayne Brittain

1 hour ago

Tesla Slides as Musk’s ‘America Party’ Heightens Investor Worries

1 hour ago

US-Backed 60-Day Gaza Ceasefire Envisages Gradual Return of Hostages, Official Says

1 hour ago

Trump to Terminate Deportation Protection for Thousands of Hondurans and Nicaraguans in US

1 hour ago

One Killed, Dozens Wounded in Russian Strikes on Kharkiv in Ukraine

1 hour ago

Texas Girls’ Camp Mourning Dozens Dead in Floods as Search Teams Face More Rain

1 hour ago

Netanyahu to Meet Trump at White House as Israel, Hamas Discuss Ceasefire

1 hour ago

Fresno Police Arrest 9 at Independence Day DUI Checkpoint

Nine drivers were arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence during a DUI checkpoint in Fresno on the night of July 4, the Fresno ...

14 minutes ago

Fresno Police arrested nine people for DUI and cited 20 others during a Friday, July 4, 2025, checkpoint that screened 227 vehicles. (GV Wire Composite/Paul Marshall)
14 minutes ago

Fresno Police Arrest 9 at Independence Day DUI Checkpoint

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks during a press conference after the Senate passes U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping spending and tax bill, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 1, 2025. (Reuters/Annabelle Gordon)
25 minutes ago

Schumer Wants Probe of National Weather Service Response in Texas

Palestinians inspect the damage at an UNRWA school sheltering displaced people that was hit in an Israeli air strike on Sunday, in Gaza City, June 30, 2025. (Reuters/Mahmoud Issa)
28 minutes ago

Israeli Guilt Over Gaza Lurks Beneath Silence and Denial

President Donald Trump comes out of the White House onto a balcony on the day he is expected to sign a sweeping spending and tax legislation, known as the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 4, 2025. (Reuters/Leah Millis)
39 minutes ago

Trump Criticized for Using Antisemitic ‘Shylock’ to Describe Bankers

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian speaks during a meeting in Ilam, Iran, June 12, 2025. Iran's Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
49 minutes ago

Iran President Says Open to Dialogue With US, Accuses Israel of Assassination Attempt

Poppy, a smart and sweet 2- to 3-year-old dog who survived months alone in a field, is now ready for adoption into a loving home. (Mell's Mutts)
58 minutes ago

Shy but Sweet Field Survivor, Poppy the Pup, Now Up for Adoption

Douglas Wayne Brittain
1 hour ago

Valley Crime Stoppers’ Most Wanted Person of the Day: Douglas Wayne Brittain

The TESLA logo is seen outside a dealership in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, U.S., April 26, 2021. (Reuters File)
1 hour ago

Tesla Slides as Musk’s ‘America Party’ Heightens Investor Worries

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend