Death Penalty News

Professor Jimmy Gurulé, founder and director of the Notre Dame Exoneration Justice Clinic, recently attended the world premiere of “Rebel Nun,” a documentary of the life of Sister Helen Prejean, C.S.J., and her decades-long struggle against the death penalty.  The world premiere was held in New York City as part of the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival. The documentary was produced by Universal Pictures.

Guilt and atonement in Iran. After her husband’s execution, Mina learns that the death penalty was unjustly imposed. She is offered compensation but she wants to meet with the judges responsible for the death sentence... BERLIN (Reuters) - When her husband is executed for murder, Mina is left to fend for herself in a society that is reluctant to allow her even to find somewhere for her and her daughter to live. But when it turns out that her husband was wrongfully executed, events take on a whole extra layer of complexity in ‘Ballad of a White Cow’, a film by Iranian directors Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha that is in the running for a coveted Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Moghaddam herself plays Mina, whose struggles with grief are compounded first by the difficulty of dealing with her immediate loss in social status and then by the struggle to win compensation for her husband’s wrongful death. “Mina is fighting to survive in such a misogynistic society, where law is...

TEHRAN, Iran — An Iranian filmmaker who just won the Berlin Film Festival's Golden Bear has been summoned to serve a one-year prison sentence over his movies, his lawyer said Wednesday. Mohammad Rasoulof's sentence came from three films he made that authorities found to be “propaganda against the system," his lawyer Nasser Zarafshan told The Associated Press. Rasoulof's sentence also included an order than he stop his filmmaking for two years as well, the lawyer said. The filmmaker received the order via a text message from the judiciary, Zarafshan said. Rasoulof will not turn himself into authorities and will appeal the order, especially given the ongoing coronavirus outbreak in Iran, the lawyer said. Authorities already sent 54,000 prisoners on temporary furlough over concerns about the virus spreading through the country's prison system. There was no immediate state media report about Rasoulof's summons, nor any comment from judiciary official...

Mohammad Rasoulof was prevented from attending the festival but won top award for his film There Is No Evil , about capital punishment in Iran Dissident Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof won the top prize at the Berlin film festival for There Is No Evil , a searingly critical work about the death penalty in Iran. Rasoulof, 48, is currently banned from leaving Iran and was unable to accept the Golden Bear in person.  Accepting the award on his behalf, producer Farzad Pak thanked “the amazing cast and crew who, put their lives in danger to be on this film”. The film tells four loosely related individual stories about the death penalty in Iran, from the executioner to the families of the victims.  Industry magazine Variety called it Rasoulof’s “most openly critical statement yet”. Rasoulof was sentenced to a year in prison last year for “attacking the security of the state”, and banned from making films for life.  Speaking to a news conference...