Daughter Of Ahmadinejad Adviser Seeks Asylum In Germany

October 15, 2009 — -- The daughter of one of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's top advisers is seeking political asylum in Germany.

After attending the German film festival Perspective, which showcases documentaries and features with a human rights focus, 25-year-old Iranian filmmaker Narges Kalhor has applied for political asylum in Germany. Her father is Mahdi Kalhor, who is Ahmadinejad's adviser on cultural affairs and a media spokesperson for the Iranian regime.

Narges Kalhor studied film and graphics in Tehran and had been working for an advertising firm in the city. She has made seven short films, one of which was shown as part of a special section on Iran during the Perspective film festival which took place in Nuremberg last week. Her film "Darkhish," or "The Rake," is an adaptation of Franz Kafka's short story about torture in prison, "In The Penal Colony."

Narges Kalhor was supposed to fly back to Iran on Tuesday. However on Monday afternoon she applied for political asylum in Germany instead.

She told SPIEGEL ONLINE in a telephone interview Wednesday that she had received several phone calls from Iran two days after the festival. "I was told that people in Iran knew about the film and that reports about it had appeared on the Internet in Farsi," says Kalhor, who admitted she had not expected news of her appearance at the film festival to travel so far and so quickly.

"I was told that it would be better not to come home and that if I went back now I would be met at the airport by the secret police," she said. "There were a lot of people at the festival who are against the Iranian regime. I did not have permission to make my film in Iran either."

The film, which is critical of torture and was partially inspired by the protesters who were arrested after Iranian national elections in June, was filmed in a Turkish bathhouse that was made to look like a torture chamber. Kalhor, who also took to the streets in June to protest with friends, some of whom were arrested, has said she hopes that viewers see parallels between the film and the situation in Iran.