As confirmed by relatives and witnesses, during the raids and mass arrests in the Diyarbakir region on April 25, the following 6 members of the City Theatre of Diyarbakir (Amend Municipal Theatre) were arrested:
– Yavuz Akkuzu
– Elvan Köçer Yıldırım
– Özcan Ateş
– Sena Özbey
– Şahperi Alphan Bayhan
– Sadettin Inal
On 25 April, 19 days before the parliamentary and presidential elections in Turkey, there have been numerous arrests of Kurds in the morning hours. Police arrested more than 100 persons, including journalists, politicians, lawyers, artists and activists in 21 cities and 19 provinces. The raids, which were carried out as part of an investigation based in Diyarbakır, mainly targeted pro-Kurdish organisations.
The Amed Municipal Theatre, Dicle Culture and Art Association, Mezopotamya Culture and Art Association and other theatre institutions were raided and many actors were arrested.
In February, more than 50,000 people died in Diyarbakır in the worst earthquake disaster in recent Turkish history, thousands are missing and hundreds of thousands have been left homeless.
Sources: Bianet.org, Tyatro Yasasin (via Twitter), Frankfurter Rundschau
As part of the Festival Week of Slovenian Drama, ITI Slovenia organised a public panel discussion to present the work of Belarusian theatre artists working in exile or in the opposition underground. The systematic repression of democratic processes in Belarus has weakened and destroyed the working conditions for many artists and intellectuals who have left the country to build new lives in the hope of one day returning home. With this event, ITI Slovenia wants to open a space for theatre colleagues whose work keeps their culture and language alive, even though they are no longer at home, and to support their future efforts.The event was hybrid, in person and via Zoom. The discussion was recorded and is accessible online via YouTube.
Mohammadi was arrested on Nov. 5, 2022, and has been sentenced to execution by the court of the city of Karaj. The death sentence was lifted in January 2023. A new trial in Karaj has now been held to decide on the sentences of 14 accused in connection with the death of a Bassij militiaman. Mohammadi, who has been in custody since November, has now been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The detention of the accused had initially been justified by their participation in a memorial service for Hadis Najafi, who was killed by Basijis during a demonstration in Karaj at the end of September. Two demonstrators were executed earlier this year as part of the major trial that eventually heard charges of “corruption on earth” and “conspiracy against internal and external security”: Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Seyed Mohammad Hosseini.
Sources: Enthekab.ir, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, ANF news,
In the wake of February’s national holiday, prominent prisoners in particular were released from prison. Tens of thousands remain in prison and arrests continue. Newly detained are four actors: Ali Baraghbani, Ramin Ramezanian, Hossein Padegan and Masih Kamali. This brings our list of arrested theater artists in Iran to 45. In the meantime, 15 have been released from prison after several months of imprisonment, 6 of them only temporarily.
March 8 is International Women’s Day. While the world public is following with disgust and indignation the recent series of poison attacks against girls’ schools in Iran, the 2nd Sahebdlan International Theater Festival in Iran invites in an email to the national ITI centers for March 7 to an online debate under the motto: „Human rights according to the Qur’an in the production of dramatic literature“. The ITI centers from Czech Republic, Finland, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland Uganda and USA, which are active in the Artists Rights Committee, declare together with the German centre: We received the call of the Sahebdlan International Theatre Festival with astonishment. We strongly reject the invitation to discuss human rights within the framework of the Qur’an in drama on the eve of International Women’s Day, while dozens of our Iranian performing arts colleagues are being held in prison or threatened with death for expressing their protest against arbitrariness, murder and state terror. We stand in solidarity with all people on stage and in the auditorium, on the street and in the universities, against the bloody violence perpetrated by the Iranian state against women and children in the name of the Qur’an!
Updated List of arrested Iranian theatre artists
Since 2003, high school education for artists has been abolished in Greece. In mid-December 2022, Presidential Decree 85 was announced, signed by Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou. It stipulates that all graduates of theater colleges, dance schools and film schools are considered employees who have completed secondary education only. Thus, theater artists in Greece do not have access to master’s degrees in their disciplines. Foreign master’s or doctoral degrees are no longer recognized. They only have access to the lowest level of unemployment benefits and salaries are no longer determined by collective agreements but by ministerial decisions.
For more than 40 days, the drama schools of the National Theater, the National Theater of Northern Greece and the Municipal Theater of Patras have been occupied by their students. Theaters in several major cities of the country meanwhile went on strike, thousands demonstrated in the streets of Athens under the slogan: “The attack on art is an attack on freedom”.
ITI Germany has signed a solidarity address to Greek theatre artists, initiated by the Berlin based GRIPS theatre: “We hereby support the demands of the actors, directors, teachers of performing arts in Greece who have been protesting for over 40 days against the Dec. 17, 22, Presidential Decree 85. Presidential Decree 85 in Greece and have occupied theaters and universities in Greece:
-The removal of the current classification of performing artists from Presidential Decree 85.
-The establishment of a public university for performing arts free of charge for all students
-A final solution to the problem of the status of the diplomas issued from 2003 to this establishment
-Tariff agreements for the private theater and audiovisual sectors, as well as for Greece’s regional municipal theaters
-A generous increase in public funding for the theater
For the human right to art and theater in Greece!”
Sources: The National Herald (February 2nd, 2023), News in France