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A co-writer of Oscar-nominated film It Was Just an Accident has been arrested in Teheran just weeks before the Academy Awards, after signing a statement that condemned Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, for the recent bloodshed in the country.
Human rights campaigner Mehdi Mahmoudian was detained on Saturday after putting his signature to a statement that said “the primary responsibility for these atrocities lies with Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, and the repressive structure of the regime”.
Two more of the 17 signatories, Vida Rabbani and Abdullah Momeni, have also been arrested. No information on the charges against the detained individuals has been released by the arresting authorities so far.
It Was Just an Accident won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival in 2025 and is a contender for best international feature film and best screenplay at the Oscars on 15 March.
The film follows a group of Iranian former political prisoners who try to decide whether to exact revenge on a man they believe to have tortured them in prison.
Mahmoudian is foremost a journalist and human rights activist, who met It Was Just an Accident’s director, veteran auteur Jafar Panahi, in prison. In a statement shared with the Guardian, Panahi praised Mahmoudian’s “calm demeanor”, “kind conduct”, and ”rare sense of responsibility toward others”.
“Whenever a new prisoner arrived, Mehdi would try to provide them with basic necessities and, more importantly, offer reassurance,” Panahi said. “He became a quiet pillar inside the prison – someone inmates of all beliefs and backgrounds trusted and confided in.”
After Mahmoudian’s release, the film-maker asked him to refine the dialogue on his screenplay, drawing on his nine-year experience of life behind bars.
“Mehdi Mahmoudian is not just a human rights activist and a prisoner of conscience; he is a witness, a listener, and a rare moral presence – a presence whose absence is immediately felt, both inside prison walls and beyond them.”
Major protests against the regime’s handling of Iran’s deepening economic crisis erupted in several parts of the country in late December, which the regime met with an internet blackout and severe crackdowns.
Iran’s official death toll, released by the Martyr’s Foundation, is 3,117, including members of the security services. Networks of medical professional inside and outside the country have estimated that the actual number of fatalities could exceed 30,000.
