A decision on Jafar Panahithe release of Evin prison in Tehran is considered imminent now that IranIran’s Supreme Court has overturned the conviction that led to the imprisonment last year of the author considered one of the greatest living masters of Iranian cinema.

Panahi’s wife, Tahereh Saeedi, posted an appeal on Instagram saying his lawyers succeeded in having the director’s six-year sentence overturned in 2010 for “propaganda against the system”. This phrase has become obsolete due to the country’s 10-year statute of limitations. Panahi’s case has now been referred to an Iranian appeals court.

“Last week we were informed that Jafar would be out in a week,” Saeedi said in the appeal posted on Instagram this week. However, “a week has passed and Jafar is still not with us,” she continued lamenting.

Panahi’s lawyer Saleh Nikhbakht told French news agency AFP that under Iranian law “he should be immediately released on bail and his case reviewed”. But the directors’ wife and other members of Iran’s film community fear that Iranian security forces will manage to force justice to keep him behind bars.

“Jafar’s release is in full compliance with their own laws,” Saeedi stressed in the appeal. “But they [Iranian authorities] are above the law; without any respect for the law,” she said.

Panahi, 62, is known worldwide for his award-winning works such as “The Circle”, “Offside”, “This is Not a Film”, “Taxi” and more recently “No Bears”, winner of the special prize of the Venice jury last year. He was arrested last July in Tehran following a crackdown by the country’s conservative government. Panahi had gone to the Tehran prosecutor’s office to follow up on the situation of his fellow dissident filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulov, who had been imprisoned a few days earlier after signing an appeal against police violence.

On January 7, Rasoulov was granted a two-week release permit for health reasons, his lawyer told AFP. Panahi’s lawyer also said that Panahi, while detained at Evin political prisoner prison in Tehran, contracted a skin disease which required treatment at a hospital outside the prison.

Rasulov and Panahi’s imprisonment came ahead of the wave of protests sparked in September by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while being held for allegedly wearing a loose hijab. These protests resulted in the death of more than 500 civilians by government security forces and the arrest or banning from making films of more than 100 members of the Iranian film industry.

On January 4, Iranian authorities released Taraneh Alidoosti, star of Oscar-winning Asghar Farhadi’s film “The Salesman,” nearly three weeks after she was jailed for criticizing a crackdown on anti-government protests.