TEHRAN -- Thousands of Iranian actors, directors, producers and screenwriters have issued a statement asking the United Nations, international leaders, and the government of Pakistan to take action to return five Iranian border guards who were kidnapped by the Pakistani rebel group Jaish al-Adl.
“We Iranian cineastes respectfully request that all influential international officials, the UN, and the friendly neighboring government of Pakistan to do their utmost in a humanitarian effort to return the innocent guards to their families,” the cineastes wrote in the statement, which was published in the Iranian media outlets on Wednesday.
Ezzatollah Entezami, Jamshid Mashayekhi, Ali Nasirian, Mohammad-Ali Keshavarz, Davud Rashidi, Asghar Farhadi, Parviz Parastuii, Reza Kianian, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Kamak Tabrizi, Mahtab Keramati, Tamineh Milani and Bahram Radan are among the cineastes who signed the statement.
Groups of cultural figures and university professors have also asked for the release of the border guards in separate statements that have been published over the past week.
Jaish al-Adl posted photos of the five men on twitter in early February, claiming responsibility for the abduction.
Jaish al-Adl’s name was raised for the first time in October when they killed 14 Iranian border guards in an ambush near the city of Saravan in the southeastern Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchestan.
MMS/YAW
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