Joe Conway (Independent)

As a Senator who was elected to the House from the cultural and educational panel, I want to delineate a happening in the last while that shows there is a crossover between politics and culture. The occasion was the winning last week of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival by Jafar Panahi, an Iranian director who gathered all the laurels at the festival for a film called "It Was Just an Accident". It outlined his experience in detention in Iran. The film also centres on the confrontation by five victims of torture in prison of their former torturer. I look forward to seeing it. Sometimes when we are looking at things like that we get a ray of hope. When he arrived back in Tehran yesterday afternoon there was no governmental attempt to arrest him. He was welcomed by a substantial group of people who could assemble in the airport to welcome him. He made the point it was a blow for freedom and when he came out of the terminal a lot of the protesters shouted "Women, life, freedom". As a people we would like to think we would bring pressure to bear on Iran and indeed all states around the world that countenance and use judicial killings of their own citizens. That was probably the most buoyant message from Panahi in his victory in Cannes. It is something we can all take away. Judicial killings are going on and it is time we spoke out against them.