Jafar Panahi, director of Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident, says Iranian leaders want to destroy country
The Khamenei regime will not be able to maintain control over Iranian society after the violent suppression of the latest wave of protests, one of the country’s leading film-makers has predicted.
“It is impossible for this government to sustain itself in this situation,” the director Jafar Panahi told the Guardian. “They know it too. They know that it will be impossible to rule over people. Perhaps their only goal right now is to bring the country to the verge of complete collapse and try to destroy it.”
Protests caused by an ailing economy have swept through Iran since late December and were met with deadly crackdowns by the security forces over the weekend, with reports of more than 2,500 people killed.
A internet blackout imposed last Friday, which blocked 95-99% of the country’s communication network, was a “sign that there would be a very big massacre on the way”, Panahi said. “But we never predicted that the crackdown would have such dimensions and numbers.”
