TEHRAN -- A large group of Iranian cineastes has asked the United Nations to stop the terrorist acts that are being committed by the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Israeli crimes in Gaza.
The request was made by over 160 cineastes in an open letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday.
The letter was published by the Resistance International Film Festival.
“In line with human, national and historical duty, and based on religious and divine values, we cineastes expect you, who are an influential man in an international organization, to play your historic role at this important stage of time, and to use all your personal and organizational capabilities to take a major step in the restoration of peace and security in the world,” the group wrote in the letter.
Directors Dariush Mehrjuii, Mohammad-Mehdi Asgarpur, Reza Mir-Karimi, Behruz Afkhami, Puran Derakhshandeh, and Ebrahim Hatamikia, and actresses Niki Karimi and Haneih Tavassoli are among those who signed the letter.
Alireza Hajianzadeh, the managing director of Iran’s Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, also wrote an open letter to Ban on Tuesday, expressing concern over the human catastrophe underway in Gaza.
In addition, the Oscar-nominated Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi strongly criticized international human rights organizations’ silence over the Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, in a statement published on last Saturday.
MMS/YAW
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