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One of the Oscar-nominated screenwriters of the Iranian drama \u201cIt Was Just an Accident\u201d<\/a> has been arrested in Tehran just weeks before the Academy Awards.<\/a><\/p>\n Representatives for the film on Sunday said that Mehdi Mahmoudian was arrested Saturday. No details on the charges against Mahmoudian were available. But his arrest came just days after Mahmoudian and 16 others signed a statement condemning Islamic Republic leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the regime’s violent crackdown on demonstrators. <\/p>\n Two other signatories, Vida Rabbani and Abdullah Momeni, were also arrested. <\/p>\n Jafar Panahi, the prize-winning director of \u201cIt Was Just an Accident,\u201d<\/a> issued a statement Sunday decrying his co-writer’s arrest. <\/p>\n \u201cMehdi Mahmoudian is not just a human-rights activist and a prisoner of conscience; he is a witness, a listener, and a rare moral presence \u2014 a presence whose absence is immediately felt, both inside prison walls and beyond them,” Panahi said. <\/p>\n Panahi was also a signatory on the Jan. 28 statement. It reads in part: \u201cThe mass and systematic killing of citizens who bravely took to the streets to bring an end to an illegitimate regime constitutes an organized state crime against humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt Was Just an Accident\u201d is nominated for best screenplay and best international film at the March 15 Oscars. The film, made covertly in Iran, was France’s nominee for best international film<\/a>. <\/p>\n Panahi, one of the most acclaimed international filmmakers, has made films through various states of imprisonment, house arrest and travel ban. \u201cIt Was Just an Accident,” a revenge drama and t he Palme d’Or-winner<\/a> at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, was inspired by Panahi’s most recent stint in prison. It was there that he met Mahmoudian. Panahi called him \u201ca pillar\u201d to other prisoners. <\/p>\n \u201cIt Was Just An Accident\u201d was written by Panahi, Mahmoudian, Nader Saeiver and Shadhmer Rastin. <\/p>\n Last fall, Panahi was again sentenced to a year in prison<\/a> and given a two-year ban on leaving Iran after being convicted on charges of \u201cpropaganda activities against the system.\u201d Panahi, who has been traveling internationally with the film, has said he will return to Iran<\/a> despite the sentence. <\/p>\n The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists New Agency, which relies on a network inside Iran to verify its information, says that more than 6,713 people have been killed and 49,500 people have been detained in the recent government crackdown. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the death toll and arrest figures, given authorities have cut Iran\u2019s internet off from the rest of the world.<\/p>\n Panahi has repeatedly spoken out against the crackdown. <\/p>\n