Iranian director blasts Trump's 'inhumane' travel ban

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi may have boycotted the Oscars over Donald Trump's travel ban, but it didn't stop him making a statement when he won Best Foreign Language Film.

The director of 'The Salesman'  had a surrogate, Iranian-American engineer and astronaut Anousheh Ansari, read a statement about empathy in his acceptance speech.

 

 Asghar Farhadi (left) had Anousheh Ansari (right) accept his award for best foreign film

In the statement by Farhadi, Ansari said: 'My absence is out of respect for the people of my country and those from the other six nations whom have been disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the US.'

'Dividing the world into the "us" and "our enemies" categories creates fear — a deceitful justification for aggression and war.'  

'These wars prevent democracy and human rights in countries which have themselves have been victims of aggression. Filmmakers can turn their cameras to capture shared human qualities and break stereotypes of various nationalities and religions.'

'They create empathy between us and others. An empathy which we need today more than ever.' 

Ansari was the first Iranian go to space. Farhadi was the first Iranian to win an Oscar, for his 2011 film, 'A Separation'.

Farhadi said in a statement that while he had initially planned to attend the ceremony, he had been forced to change his mind.

After the ban was announced, Farhadi, 45, said in a statement to the New York Times: 'I neither had the intention to not attend nor did I want to boycott the event as a show of objection, for I know that many in the American film industry and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are opposed to the fanaticism and extremism which are today taking place more than ever.'

He added: 'However, it now seems that the possibility of this presence is being accompanied by ifs and buts which are in no way acceptable to me even if exceptions were to be made for my trip.'

He said hardliners in United States and Iran acted with the same mentality. -Daily Mail