Director of ‘Happy in Tehran’ Video Is Reportedly Freed

Sassan Soleimani, the director of “Happy in Tehran,” a viral YouTube tribute to Pharrell Williams that offended Iran’s conservative judiciary, was released on bail, according to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, a New York-based advocacy group. Evidence of the director’s freedom, after nine days in custody, came in the form of a self-portrait he sent to Kambiz Hosseini, a popular expatriate satirist whose Jon Stewart-like riffs on current events reach Iranians via the Internet or on satellite channels financed by the United States government.