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Russia's War On Ukraine; Sri Lanka In Crisis; Middle East Diplomacy; Western Europe Extreme Weather; Monkeypox Cases In The U.S.; Iranian Filmmakers Imprisoned Following Crackdown. Aired 4-5a ET
Aired July 17, 2022 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Welcome to all of you watching us here in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber.
Ahead on CNN NEWSROOM, the war in Ukraine escalates and with it a war against the environment. We're live in Kyiv with a report.
Joe Biden faces tough questions as he returns from the Middle East. CNN sits down with Saudi Arabia's foreign minister for an exclusive interview and what came from his visit.
Plus firefighters are battling deadly wildfires scorching Europe. We're live in Madrid with the latest.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Brunhuber.
BRUNHUBER: We're getting word of a new barrage of Russian missile strikes in Mykolaiv as the city is still reeling from similar strikes on Friday. There are no reports of casualties. Russia also fired five cruise missiles elsewhere in the south but three were shot down.
Russian missiles also set an industrial facility in Kyiv on fire. And in the east Ukraine says it is holding the line in the Donetsk region and says eight settlements came under fire but Russian troops didn't make any gains.
Ukraine's artillery has been stepping up attacks behind the front lines in recent weeks. President Zelenskyy says his country is making progress and will keep up the momentum.
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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: Ukraine has withstood Russia's brutal blows. We have already managed to liberate part of the territory that was occupied after February 24th. We will gradually liberate other regions of our state that are currently under the occupation.
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BRUNHUBER: Ukraine says long range artillery systems supplied by the West are now being used on the front lines. And more new rocket launchers were delivered on Friday. Experts say the new equipment, particularly the HIMARS sent by the U.S., could help Ukraine overcome Russia's artillery advantage.
Earlier I spoke with Mick Ryan, a retired major general of the Australian Army, about what makes the HIMARS so effective in combat. Here he is.
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MAJ. GEN. MICK RYAN (RET.), AUSTRALIAN ARMY: The HIMARS is a very long range and accurate weapons system that's capable of targeting a high-value target well behind enemy lines, particularly these ammunition supply dumps we've seen but also headquarters with senior Russian officers and also air defense systems.
So in total, this really degrades Russia's capacity and allows Ukrainians to start fighting the way they prefer to fight, which is not to go man to man, up against the Russians in artillery duels. It's to attack them indirectly.
It's to corrode their logistics, their morale. And then they can kind of give the knockout blows, like they did in the battles of Kyiv and Kharkiv.
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The Russian invasion is also taking a toll on the environment. Industrial sites, oil depots, chemical facilities, all have come under Russian attacks and that includes this oil refinery hit in April. All those strikes are already doing damage to the environment.
For more, Scott McLean is joining us from Kyiv.
Obviously as you've seen with your own eyes, we can't understate how devastating it has been on human lives. But another type of damage could poison Ukraine for decades. Take us through the story.
SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You're right. Energy is undoubtedly a weapon in this war. Europe is vowing to cut itself off from Russian oil and gas but only if Russia doesn't cut off the pipelines first.
And increasingly we are seeing oil depots, electrical substations being hit by long range Russian missiles. And every time they are, it leaves behind environmental damage and health impacts that could linger for years. And while the human toll is tallied up every day, the environmental tally is much harder to quantify.
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MCLEAN: But that is exactly what the Ukrainians are aiming do right now in the hopes of one day getting Russia to pay.
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MCLEAN (voice-over): On March 24th, a Russian missile landed right on target, this oil depot outside Kyiv. Yuri Odinet (ph) says it won't take long for the contamination to reach the local water supply. He said it has already poisoned the nearby pond, where he used to fish every summer, 1,000 fish washed up dead in a matter of days.
"Now there is nothing but anger," he says.
Some of the fish still look OK but as soon as you put them in the pan, they smell like diesel. The water is regularly tested for pollutants now. So is the soil at the blast site, which sits next to a field of sunflowers, a Ukrainian symbol of peace.
Ukraine's environment minister says that the country has logged 257 cases of alleged war crimes against the environment, including burnt forests, blown up chemical facilities and sewage spills.
History has already shown the harmful environmental effects of war. In Iraq, birth defects and high cancer rates were blamed in large part on the toxic byproducts of battle.
"We have to show the whole world that war is expensive. Destroying oil depots, shelling rivers and wetlands expensive. And when they understand that it's expensive, the risk of the next war will be reduced."
It is not just oil depots and industrial sites; across the country there are lineups of burnt out tanks or graveyards like this one for destroyed vehicles. The problem is, that left uncollected, all of this is toxic to the environment.
And so now the Ukrainian government is collecting and compiling data on all of this in hopes of one day sending the bill to Moscow. It will ultimately be the Ukraine prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova's job to build the case and convince the International Criminal Court to take it.
Can you honestly see the day where Russia cuts you a check?
IRYNA VENEDIKTOVA, UKRAINIAN PROSECUTOR GENERAL: Maybe. I know Russians better than you. Never. Only when we have the process of sanctions, where they don't have right, do it or not, when they have strict rules and have strict obligations, only in this way. It is Russians.
MCLEAN: Why should Russia pay when this kind of a thing seems like the normal collateral damage of war?
Surely an oil depot is a legitimate military target.
VENEDIKTOVA: They won't tend to sweep oil depots (ph). And we all understand that it will be every (INAUDIBLE) is a terror military (ph) target or not. If we look at this situation objectively, if in any more war in any size, it is again huge damages for environmental sphere. And someone should pay.
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MCLEAN: The reality though is that Ukraine is undoubtedly fighting a steep uphill battle to actually get compensation. This type of case doesn't have a precedent at the International Criminal Court, in part because ecocide, as the Ukrainians describe this, is not under the ICC's mandate.
It is not an international crime that falls under the court's jurisdiction. There is some hope, though, and that is that Kuwait got compensation from Iraq for health and environmental impacts caused by the Gulf War but that was under a special U.N. body called the U.N. Compensation Commission.
And the final payment only came in January, three decades after that body was actually established. And even if Ukraine were to get something similar established today to try to get Russia to pay, it would fall under the U.N. Security Council. And, as we know, Kim, Russia has a veto power there.
BRUNHUBER: Yes, exactly right. Scott McLean in Kyiv, thanks for your reporting.
Sri Lanka's parliament is getting ready to choose a new president. Lawmakers say that they will accept nominations for the post Tuesday and they could pick a new leader on Wednesday. This after the ouster of former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Will Ripley is live in Colombo.
What is the latest there?
WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The latest is you have people who are now starting to speak out and say that they think that they have the right vision for Sri Lanka to turn around the dire situation that this country is in, more than $50 billion in debt, not able to even pay the interest on the loans.
One of those people is the leader of the opposition, the son of a former president, who says that, every time that he sees the hardship the people are enduring, it motivates him to want to change things.
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SAJITH PREMADASA, SRI LANKAN OPPOSITION LEADER: I see it on a daily basis. I see the gas queues. I see the food queues. I see inflation going up. So the situation is very, very bad.
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RIPLEY: How did Sri Lanka get here?
PREMADASA: It's a consequence of unfortunate economic decision- making. I call it voodoo economics.
RIPLEY: Voodoo? Why do you call it that? PREMADASA: For example, a 600 billion rupee tax cut for the super- rich, which resulted in state income reducing from 12 percent to 8 percent of GDP. That's a very, very scary scenario.
The retort that you get from the government is, oh, that's an international conspiracy. That's why I call it voodoo economics. It's highly illogical, highly impractical.
And what's most astonishing is the fact that we had the COVID pandemic. To at least reverse some of the illogical decisions that they made because of COVID, they just stuck to their guns. They did not want to listen to the others. Here the outside opinion is not reflected in parliament.
RIPLEY: But then how does that bode for what we've seen in recent months, with the anger on the streets and the crowd saying that, if this old guard remains in power, they're going to be right back out there, showing the people's power?
PREMADASA: People power led to Rajapaksa fleeing the country. So people power will decide and determine the destiny of the rest to follow.
RIPLEY: What would you do if you became the president to turn things around for people who are out there, standing in those days-long queues for basic necessities?
PREMADASA: First and foremost, tell the truth. And the truth is very bitter. It's a very hard pill to swallow. But the truth is, you cannot have change overnight. Because for 2.5 to 3 years, this country has been crumbling. And brick by brick, we have to build back.
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RIPLEY: Brick by brick is a process that he says could take four to five years by their estimation. But he is not the frontrunner, not the person widely seen as the likely new president of Sri Lanka.
That would be the acting president, former prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was the guy whose house was set on fire last weekend. But now through the power of Sri Lanka's constitution, he has become the acting president, appointed by the disgraced former president, who we think is in Singapore at this moment.
And if he is in power, protesters say that is still more of the same, more of the government that drove this country's economy into the ground through bad policies and accusations of corruption.
Behind me here is the secretary building office of the president and it is occupied on this 100th day of demonstrations here. It is the only building that the protesters still occupy.
But they say if this selection of the new president ends up with more of the same here, that these streets could once again be full of people, who are going to show the government exactly how angry they are that their pleas, the power of the people as they put it, were unanswered.
BRUNHUBER: The chaos could continue. All right, Will Ripley, thanks so much.
Now to the investigation into the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. We're just days away from the committee's last planned hearing. And new developments are already piling up, including details about some of the fringe figures, who were in contact with former president Trump.
On Saturday "The New York Times" revealed a stunning memo from a little known conservative lawyer, laying out a plan to overturn the 2020 election. Katelyn Polantz reports.
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KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: "The New York Times" has unearthed a memo from a conservative lawyer, who was speaking directly to Donald Trump in December 2020 about what Trump could do with the presidency to block the election result.
So what's important about this is that it gives us a little bit more knowledge about what was happening, what Donald Trump was hearing, what he was thinking, what he may have been planning in late 2020 after the election leading up to January 6th.
So William Olson is the lawyer here. He's writing a memo. "The New York Times" has posted it publicly.
In it he says, he and Trump spoke on Christmas Day; they had a discussion. He's following up and says, you know, I want to walk through what my suggestions are again to tell you that I know you, too, Donald Trump, will be following up on as well.
He says that the lawyers around Trump are not serving him well as president and that, as president, Trump should really take control and give some orders to make sure that he can win the election.
That includes -- Olson is insulting the Justice Department at one point. He says White House counsel's office were being shameful and dismissive toward him as president.
And then he says to Trump, here what is must be done. You should replace the White House counsel.
He tells Trump he should order the Justice Department to file a lawsuit challenging the election result
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POLANTZ: Or if that won't be done by the Justice Department, Trump should get rid of that leadership over there.
And then he describes potentially working on other things that the presidency could do using its powers. And that's when Olson writes, the media will call this martial law but that is fake news. So he's saying that to Donald Trump. After that, what we know from the
record already is that Trump did want to do some of these things, including potentially firing his attorney general and putting in place someone sympathetic to these very ideas William Olson was writing about in late December -- Katelyn Polantz, CNN, Washington.
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BRUNHUBER: In just a few hours, families of the Uvalde shooting victims will get the preliminary findings of the Texas house committee investigation and also the surveillance video which was leaked to the "Austin American-Statesman" newspaper earlier this week.
The video lasts more than 70 minutes and shows police officers standing around in the corridor while students were still trapped inside the classroom with the gunman. A source told CNN the report is expected to focus on the facts of the attack, including a timeline of events, law enforcement manifests and details about the gunman.
It is also expected to clarify conflicting accounts of what happened. The report will show law enforcement failures that day were greater than one person or agency; 19 children and two teachers were killed in the massacre.
President Biden wrapped up four days of talks in the Middle East with a lot of focus on Iran. Everyone agreed Iran must not get nuclear weapons but not on how to stop it. So we'll hear what the Saudi foreign minister had to say in an exclusive interview with CNN coming up.
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BRUNHUBER: President Biden is back home this morning, following his four day trip to the Middle East. It was his first visit to the region as president and was an opportunity to reengage with longtime allies and reassure them of American commitments.
Now Biden left the summit without any firm agreements from the Gulf states to boost oil production, which could help ease inflation at home. But he said that he was hopeful that they would soon.
The president was also looking to reset U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia. And that effort was highlighted with the fist bump greeting, which drew harsh criticism. When asked about it, back at the White House, late Saturday, Biden seemed annoyed. Have a listen to this.
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QUESTION: The Saudi foreign minister said he didn't hear you accuse the crown prince of Khashoggi's murder. Is he telling the truth?
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No.
QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) fist bump, Mr. President.
BIDEN: Why don't you talk about something that matters?
I'm happy to answer a question that matters.
QUESTION: Will inflation go down from here, Mr. President?
BIDEN: I'm hoping.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: Iran was a central issue during Biden's stops in Israel and Saudi Arabia. And while there was widespread agreement Iran must not obtain nuclear weapons, there was no clear consensus on how to stop it.
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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: One of the things that President Biden also spoke about was Iran, the threat Iran poses to the region. But among the GCC members, there really isn't very much commonalty. The UAE takes a divergent position.
ADEL AL-JUBEIR, SAUDI FOREIGN MINISTER: You can see that GCC states that we are having discussions with Iran. So is the UAE, so are our friends at Qatar, at Kuwait. So we are all talking to the Iranians, because we want to resolve our differences through dialogue. We hope the Iranians will respond in kind.
ROBERTSON: What did you say to President Biden on Israel's position of a last resort strike on Iran?
AL-JUBEIR: It would not be my place to comment on another country's positions.
ROBERTSON: You must have said something to President Biden because the outfall of an action could have an impact on Saudi Arabia.
AL-JUBEIR: Our discussion with President Biden focused on how to address the Iranian threat. And here, we talked about, first of all, negotiations but also putting together enough pressure to incentivize the Iranians to come to the negotiating table.
ROBERTSON: What pressure does that look like?
AL-JUBEIR: That is something that we still have to figure out.
ROBERTSON: What do you think of the inducements that are going to make it work?
AL-JUBEIR: I hope the Iranians will take the inducements which are better integration into the region, economic cooperation with their neighbors. We have to protect ourselves and here we're working with the U.S. to build our capacity, ours and the others in the region, to build our capacity to defend ourselves against potential Iranian aggression.
You will recall their attack on our facilities. All of this means that we do need to build a robust defense posture and we heard a commitment from President Biden to a robust defense of the kingdom.
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ROBERTSON: What does that physically look like, when he says he will give you robust support -- ?
AL-JUBEIR: -- of course that is a very broad spectrum of activities that strengthen our capacity, working closely with the U.S. military to interdict, for instance, arms flow into Yemen.
ROBERTSON: Does this mean that you don't need to buy missile defense systems from China?
AL-JUBEIR: We'll buy missile defense systems or any defensive weapons from where we can find the best solutions for our needs. We see really the U.S. as a primary partner in defense procurement. But of course, if we can't get U.S. equipment, we will look elsewhere.
ROBERTSON: And President Biden has been very clear, part of this new pact with the region is that China and Russia are enemies.
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AL-JUBEIR: I never heard President Biden describe China as an enemy. I would caution against that. I think U.S. will always be our most important national security partner.
But it is also a fact that, as I said, China is the world's second largest economy and that we, in order for the region, the globe to have a pathway to sustainable prosperity, need cooperation, not confrontation.
ROBERTSON: Let me pick up on the 5G, 6G. Your commitment to invest in U.S. produced 5G, 6G products.
Does that mean that you will buy less Chinese versions?
AL-JUBEIR: We are always looking at what is best for us, so what fits our technological needs. But we won't make ourselves exclusive to one supplier or the other because that doesn't make commercial sense.
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BRUNHUBER: An American lawyer who once represented Khashoggi has been sentenced to three years in prison in the United Arab Emirates, according to the state news service, which reported that he had been convicted of money laundering and tax evasion. He was detained last week at Dubai's airport. U.S. officials say that
they have been in contact with him and are seeking additional information from the UAE.
Parts of Europe are in the midst of a dangerous heat wave and it is pushing temperatures in many areas to record highs and sparking wildfires. We're live in Madrid next with a closer look. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to all of you watching us here in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber.
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BRUNHUBER: A scorching heat wave is sparking wildfires from Portugal to Greece and pushing temperatures in many areas to record highs. That heat has been deadly.
In Spain alone, the estimated death toll has risen to at least 237, according to the country's health ministry. More deaths are expected as temperatures continue to rise across a significant portion of the country.
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BRUNHUBER: A cargo plane crashed a short time ago in northern Greece, up to 10 people reported on board. It is not clear yet if there are any survivors. Have a look here, this is the crash scene.
The flight was operated by the Ukrainian cargo airline Meridian. The plane was carrying what it called dangerous cargo. The cargo hasn't been identified but it may be ammunition.
The plane was traveling from Serbia to Jordan when it crashed. Authorities haven't recovered its black box but they are at the scene investigating and we'll bring you more on this developing story as details become available.
Italy's government is trying to figure out where it is going after a week of political turmoil that included a no-confidence vote and a rejected offer to resign from Prime Minister Mario Draghi. Anna Stewart reports.
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ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: After a period of relative stability, Italy has once again been plunged into political crisis. On Thursday, the country's prime minister Mario Draghi offered to resign. But the president quickly rejected the resignation. The surprise announcement came after Draghi's government had just won
a confidence vote but a cost of living package. However the Five Star Movement, largest party in the country's coalition government, boycotted the vote.
The president asked Draghi to address lawmakers next week to try to find a solution to the standoff. But without the support of Five Star, the government is left at risk of collapse and could lead to snap elections as early as the fall.
SILVIA SCIORILLI BORRELLI, "FINANCIAL TIMES": The parties are going to discuss their positions, the coalitions. The center right and the center left are going to try to find common ground to understand and decide whether there is scope and there is room for maneuver.
And so if Draghi can potentially continue as prime minister of Italy or if the parties that support his government would rather go back to the polls.
STEWART (voice-over): Mario Draghi was appointed prime minister in 2021 to help with the country's recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. He had previously served as president of the European Central Bank from 2011 to 2019.
Analysts say Draghi stepping done could be a huge blow to Italy and the European Union at a time when it hopes the unity against Russia's war in Ukraine and faces an energy crisis. Some say Italy will find a way out of the political turmoil.
GIOVANNI ORSINA, LUISS UNIVERSITY: I would say Italy will go on, will stay inside the Atlantic alliance, will be a trustworthy partner with the European Union and is going to govern itself economically.
That being said, certainly in these last 18 months, Draghi's presence has been very relevant in giving prestige and force to Italy.
STEWART (voice-over): Anna Stewart, CNN.
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BRUNHUBER: And just ahead, I'll speak to a global health expert and find out if lessons learned from COVID can help us respond to the monkeypox threat. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: The rapid spread of the monkeypox virus is concerning health experts around the world. Here in the United States, more than 1,800 cases have already been reported and U.S. Centers for Disease Control expects case numbers to rise in the coming weeks due to streamlined reporting, delayed diagnoses and expanded testing.
Globally the CDC says more than 12,500 cases of monkeypox have been reported in 68 countries so far. So for more on this, I'm joined by Dr. Rosamund Lewis, the technical lead on monkeypox for the World Health Organization and she is joining us live from Geneva.
Thanks for being with us. We've seen a huge rise in some places like London where there has been a big surge recently doubling in less than a week; New York, where it has tripled in a week.
How concerned are you about the virus' behavior and the way it is spreading?
DR. ROSAMUND LEWIS, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: Hello, Kim. It is concerning. It is an infectious disease that is moving quickly. And so it is concerning that it is moving across countries and within countries and in particular population groups; most notably at the moment in men who have sex with men.
And so it is really critical to get information to people who need to have to protect themselves and others.
BRUNHUBER: What information are you trying to highlight right now?
LEWIS: Well, the information is, for example, what lessons have we learned from our experience with COVID over the last 2.5 years?
So the information for health authorities, that rapid response is absolutely critical, that access to testing must be ramped up and a combination of public health measures such as early diagnosis, contact tracing, vaccination, these are important to offer as a package.
For individuals, what is important is to know about the disease, understand how it presents, what it might look like, the situations -- something else we've learned from COVID-19 -- the context, the situations, the settings in which transmission might be higher, people might be at higher risk.
So as people understand that they might be putting themselves at risk, then they can lower their own risk through the changes that they need to make.
BRUNHUBER: You spoke of testing. CNN spoke to Dr. Fauci yesterday about the alarming numbers and he told us that here in the U.S. the cases are likely undercounted. Here he is. Listen.
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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF COVID-19 MEDICAL ADVISER: Whenever you have the emergence of something like this, you will always probably be looking at what might be, might be, we don't know, the tip of the iceberg. So that is the reason why we've got to get the testing out there in a much more vigorous way.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BRUNHUBER: But that testing response here has been criticized as too slow and in terms of getting people the treatment, there is too much red tape and the criticism is that that we don't seem to have learned lessons from the COVID pandemic.
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BRUNHUBER: Is that what you are seeing elsewhere as well?
LEWIS: It is really important to appreciate these lessons and to build on them. So that I do agree that this is critical.
Now for the testing, the only test that has been available so far is PCR. And we do have a head start in the sense that there are countermeasures available, which there weren't at the beginning of COVID.
However, there is not yet access to rapid tests for example. And so it is on national health authorities to organize and regional and state provincial health authorities to organize testing in a way that the tests can be accessed quickly and the specimens from the rash can be sent to central laboratories.
The United States has expanded from public health testing labs to commercial testing labs, which have also a very wide reach. And so access to testing should be greatly ramped up through that partnership between the public sector and the private sector.
BRUNHUBER: And again with the lessons learned or not learned from COVID, the WHO's response so far, the organization hasn't declared it a public health emergency of international concern. The WHO was criticized for waiting too long to make that declaration about COVID.
So is the WHO making the same mistake again now?
LEWIS: The emergency committee for monkeypox is being reconvened this week on the 21st of July and so that discussion will take place again. And the members and advisers of the emergency committee will review the progress over the last 21 days and see what is actually happening now.
There are many considerations that need to be looked into and that will be looked into, which include what we've been discussing, which is the spread of the disease, where it is going and how it is moving, what we're learning.
Because research is already beginning to come out about this and it is very early days for some of the features that we want to know more about. But information is coming out. All of this will be reviewed again by the emergency committee on Thursday.
BRUNHUBER: All right. I imagine the downside of waiting is that we have fewer -- more and more spread and fewer resources as the countries try to husband those for themselves. So it lends more and more urgency to this, as you are well aware. We'll have to leave it there. Dr. Lewis, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.
LEWIS: You're welcome.
BRUNHUBER: Top U.S. disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci says that while there is no evidence that the B.A.5 variant causes more severe disease, deaths and hospitalizations are unacceptably high.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says current hospitalizations surpassed 40,000 for the first time in about four months and the CDC is predicting an average of more than 400 deaths per day over the next four weeks.
So to bring those numbers down, Dr. Fauci says masks, testing and COVID boosters are key but many Americans in the under 50 age group are wondering when a second dose will be authorized. Here he is.
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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF COVID-19 MEDICAL ADVISER: The FDA right now is looking at all the data and making the decision, which I think will be reasonably soon, as to whether or not there will be the authorization of vaccination in the fourth boost for individuals less than 50.
And if so, will there be subcategories, like people maybe who are at a higher risk for complications. But let's leave that up to the FDA. They are the ones that will look carefully at that data and hopefully we'll get an answer reasonably soon.
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BRUNHUBER: Iran says it is cracking down on dissidents. Some say the move is just to divert the public's attention from the real problems in Iran. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: Three Iranian filmmakers are behind bars following a crackdown by the Revolutionary Guard. At least two were critical of the Iranian regime and many see it as an attempt to distract from soaring inflation. Jomana Karadsheh has more.
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JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Riding high after winning his prize at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival for "A Man of Integrity," Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof was filled with optimism.
MOHAMMAD RASOULOF, IRANIAN FILMMAKER: I'm very happy because I think this prize will be -- everything will be easy for me after that.
KARADSHEH (voice-over): But now he and along with two other renowned filmmakers, Jafar Panahi and Mostafa Aleahmad, are in Evin prison. The catalyst for their arrest, public support for a wave protests sparked by a horrific building collapse in Abadan in May, an accident officials pinned on lapsed safety measures and corruption.
On Twitter, Rasoulof posted a letter signed by prominent members of the Iranian filmmaking community, calling for security forces to, quote, "put down their weapons" against protesters.
But his producer Kaveh Farnam says that the arrests are a diversion, meant to steer Iranians away from the very dire economic situation in the country, caused by skyrocketing inflation, which, according to analysts topped more than 52 percent in June.
KAVEH FARNAM, FILM DIRECTOR: The economical situation here in Iran is not good at all and somehow it has been out of control. And the politics games that they're playing was not successful. So they have to bring some other things to the society.
KARADSHEH (voice-over): Panahi and Rasoulof, outspoken critics of the regime, have a history of facing the ire of their government. Both men, arrested in the wake of anti-government green protests following the contested 2009 election, served time in prison and were banned from making films.
Panahi was also prohibited from leaving Iran for 20 years.
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KARADSHEH (voice-over): But the other two have defied that filmmaking ban, continuing to direct in secret. Panahi directed perhaps his most famous work, "Taxi," in which he plays himself as a film director working as a taxi driver.
Screened in his absence at the Berlin film festival in 2015, "Taxi" won the top prize, the Golden Bear for Best Film.
Rasoulof was allowed more freedom to travel until 2017, when authorities confiscated his passport after his Cannes win for "A Man of Integrity."
Undeterred, both men kept making films, highlighted again and again by their peers with awards. Those very film festivals now joining a growing chorus, calling for their immediate release.
For now, all three men, along with more than a dozen other prominent dissidents, according to the Center for Human Rights in Iran, sit in prison, awaiting word of formal charges.
FARNAM: See, when you are living in the totality regime, there is no need to any reason that they come and arrest you.
KARADSHEH (voice-over): Jomana Karadsheh, CNN, Istanbul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: That wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. I'll be back in a moment with more news. Please do stay with us.
