Iranian Actress Taraneh Alidoosti Released From Jail After Family Post Bail – The authorities released the renowned Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti from prison after her friends and family provided bail. On Iranian social media, pictures of her outside of jail with activists holding flowers and without a headscarf were displayed. She was jailed for expressing support for the Iranian women’s movement, notably by appearing on Instagram without a hijab, the country’s mandatory head covering.
About 600 international film stars, writers, and actors protested Alidoosti’s arrest, an unprecedented level of solidarity for any of the 10,000 or more Iranians detained since the protests began three months ago. Alidoosti, an Oscar-winning Iranian actress, was arrested in her Tehran home on December 17 as part of an effort to intimidate celebrities who have used their prominence to express sympathy for the protests triggered by the September death in jail of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini. Since then more than 500 Iranians have died.
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Wednesday morning, Alidoosti’s mother, Nadereh Hakim-Elahi, confirmed her daughter’s release via Instagram. Additionally, the actor’s attorney, Zahra Minooei, shared the news. In the post, Minooei said: “Today, my client Ms Taraneh Alidoosti will be released from Evin prison after posting bail.” It has been reported that bail was set at approximately 1bn Iranian rial (£20,000). Government-backed media in Iran said Alidoosti had been arrested for “failing to provide proof for some of her statements” that criticised the use of the death penalty.
Oscar-winning director Asghar Farhadi, who directed Alidoosti in The Salesman, demanded her release, while the Cannes film festival showed support for the actor on its social media pages. The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, is scheduled to visit her British counterpart, James Cleverly, on Thursday in London for bilateral discussions. However, the British decision to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Council (IRGC) as a terrorist organization is presenting issues.
Even though the IRGC is already a sanctioned entity, the UK Home Office has ruled that it should be added to the list of proscribed terrorist organizations, according to the Daily Telegraph. In Germany, Baerbock is under pressure to follow the UK’s example from Norberrt Röttgen, the influential Christian Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson, as well as the Iranian diaspora community. Röttgen said on Tuesday: “Britain took the lead in what needed to be done. IRGC should be included in the list of terrorist organisations. In the European Union, all the prerequisites for this action are present. If Mrs Baerbock’s message of solidarity is serious, she should start working and fight for this goal now.”
The German foreign office argues that a “terrorism” listing requires “investigations or a judgment on terrorist offences in a member state of the EU.” But Röttgen claims a designation could equally be based on a “judgment against the Revolutionary Guards for terrorism by an American federal court.” He said the German public was being “deceived.” Proscription, as opposed to sanctions, is seen as a way of marking a decisive break from the Iranian regime, and almost a sign that the west has no interest in pursuing the stalled talks aimed at reviving the nuclear agreement limiting Iran’s proliferation activities.
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Iran once insisted that the US delisting the IRGC as a terrorist organization was a prerequisite for reviving the nuclear deal, but since then, the focus of dispute between the west and Iran over the nuclear agreement has shifted to the future of the UN inspection regime and Iran’s inability to provide evidence that it has not engaged in illegal nuclear activities at three previously undisclosed sites.
