Mehdi Mahmoudian\u2019s arrest came just days after he and 16 others signed a statement condemning Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.<\/b>
\nOne of the Oscar-nominated screenwriters of the Iranian drama It Was Just an Accident has been arrested in Tehran just weeks before the Academy Awards.
Representatives for the film on Sunday said Mehdi Mahmoudian was arrested on Saturday. No details on the charges against Mahmoudian were available but his arrest came just days after Mahmoudian and 16 others signed a statement condemning Islamic Republic leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the regime\u2019s violent crackdown on demonstrators.
Two other signatories, Vida Rabbani and Abdullah Momeni, were also arrested.
Jafar Panahi, the prize-winning director of It Was Just an Accident, issued a statement on Sunday decrying his co-writer\u2019s arrest.
\u201cMehdi Mahmoudian is not just a human rights activist and a prisoner of conscience; he is a witness, a listener, and a rare moral presence \u2013 a presence whose absence is immediately felt, both inside prison walls and beyond them,\u201d Panahi said.
Panahi was also a signatory on the January 28 statement. It reads in part: \u201cThe mass and systematic killing of citizens who bravely took to the streets to bring an end to an illegitimate regime constitutes an organised state crime against humanity.\u201d
It Was Just an Accident is nominated for best screenplay and best international film at the March 15 Oscars. The film, made covertly in Iran, was France\u2019s nominee for best international film.<\/p>\n