CAIRO: An Iranian actress was sentenced to one-year in prison and 90 lashes for acting in a film that criticizes the Iranian government. The film “My city Tehran for Sale” portrays the difficulties faced by artists in Iran and tells the story of a theater actress who fails in working inside Iran so she travels abroad to practice her art. The film's director Granaz Moussavi, also actress Marzieh Vafamehr's husband, told an opposition website that artist always end up in prison in Iran. “It is a sour story that our artists are sent to jail for doing their job,” he told Kalim website. He also invited the Iranian authorities to detain and punish him instead of his wife, as he is the director of the film. Since the Iranian revolution turned into Islamic rule over the country in 1979, opposition artists and thinkers have been oppressed and many have been forced to leave their country to find freedom of expression away from jail. BM
