Award-winning Iranian film maker Jafar Panahi has been released from jail on bail, two days after he went on hunger strike over his imprisonment.

Tahereh Saeedi said at the time that his detention - several months before the ongoing anti-government protests erupted - amounted to a kidnapping.

The Cannes festival director Thierry Fremaux expressed "great relief" over the film maker's release.

"We do not forget all those, in Iran and around the world, who are subjected to violence and repression," Mr Fremaux told the AFP news agency.

In a separate development, photos have emerged on social media purportedly showing an emaciated jailed Iranian dissident, Farhad Meysami.

In a letter, a copy of which has been seen by BBC Persian, Mr Meysami repeated his previous demands: an end to executions of protesters and to the government's headscarf policy for women, and the release of political prisoners.