A scene from Jafar Panahi’s ‘It Was Simply an Accident’.
| Photograph Credit score: Particular Association
Mehdi Mahmoudian, the Oscar-nominated co-writer of “It Was Simply an Accident,” has been launched from an Iranian jail 17 days after his arrest, in keeping with native media stories.
Mahmoudian was arrested in Tehran shortly after signing an announcement condemning Islamic Republic chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the regime’s violent crackdown on demonstrators. On Tuesday (February 17, 2026), he was launched from the Nowshahr jail, together with two different signatories of the assertion, Vida Rabbani and Abdollah Momeni.
No additional particulars on any fees towards Mahmoudian had been instantly obtainable. All three had been launched on bail.
Mahmoudian is nominated for greatest authentic screenplay on the Academy Awards, together with Nader Saeivar, Shadmehr Rastin and director Jafar Panahi. The movie, a revenge drama impressed by Panahi’s personal time in jail, can be nominated for greatest worldwide function, as a submission from France.
Additionally learn: Jafar Panahi returns after 20 years, receives 10-minute standing ovation for ‘It Was Simply an Accident’
“Mehdi Mahmoudian, Vida Rabbani, and Abdollah Momeni peacefully exercised their proper to specific their views, however the regime responded by accusing them of ‘insulting the Supreme Chief’ and ‘propaganda towards the Islamic Republic,’” Panahi stated in an announcement on Tuesday (February 17, 2026). “For years, such fees have been used as instruments to criminalise thought, silence criticism, and instil worry in society. Turning a civil and peaceable act right into a nationwide safety case is a transparent signal of intolerance towards the unbiased voices of residents.”
Mahmoudian, a author and political activist, has beforehand been imprisoned a number of occasions, together with a five-year time period that led to 2014 on fees of “mutiny towards the regime.” Panahi, who has himself been jailed and put underneath home arrest by the Islamic Republic regime, first met him in jail.
Hundreds had been killed in final month’s nationwide protests in Iran. Worldwide strain has grown over the regime’s crackdown on demonstrators, together with a mass protest held over the weekend in Munich. On Friday (February 13, 2026), U.S. President Donald Trump stated that regime change in Iran “can be the perfect factor that would occur.”
Revealed – February 18, 2026 07:52 am IST