Imprisoned Iranian writer Baktash Abtin dies after being hired for COVID Prison News

Abtin, jailed for security charges, was a joint winner of the 2021 PEN / Barbey Freedom to Write Award.

Tehran, Iran – Iranian poet and filmmaker Baktash Abtin, jailed for security charges, has died at a Tehran hospital after being detained on COVID-19 detention.

The 48-year-old was taken to hospital Home prison in mid-December and placed in a coma caused by a doctor on Saturday to help recover from a serious case of coronavirus a week before he died.

Rights groups said authorities wasted no time in providing medical care when they began showing symptoms of the disease more than a month ago.

At a joint letter PEN America and 18 other non-governmental organizations published on Friday called on Ali Khamene to provide the best medical care to the top leader, and also called on political prisoners to stop serving sentences while Iran’s prison conditions are dangerous.

Abtin, a board member of the Iranian Writers’ Association, was summoned to serve his sentence in September 2020 along with members Reza Khandan Mahabadi and Keyvan Bajan.

PEN America presented the 2021 PEN / Barbey Freedom to Write Award to three writers in October.

After Abtin’s death, the Tehran prison organization said the writer was serving a five-year sentence for “propaganda against national security.”

The organization said he had been in hospital for 35 days, during which time judicial officials decided to give him a temporary break from prison, but doctors were unable to save him.

Tens of thousands of messages about Abtin flooded Twitter and other social media platforms within hours of his death.

#Iran: RSF sadly learned of his death #Baktash_Abtine. Writer and #reporter He was unjustly sentenced to 6 years in prison and was detained in hospital, ill # Covid19 & minus necessary attention. The RSF blames the regime’s top officials for the death. pic.twitter.com/zNZ2l0rw1v

– RSF (@RSF_inter) January 8, 2022

In a picture that goes with many messages, he shows his ankles chained to a hospital bed while he was reading in a blue prison uniform. Another shows that he is in a coma, with breathing tubes and other equipment that keeps him alive.

Iran’s COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations have dropped sharply in recent weeks as a result of a nationwide vaccination campaign, but authorities have warned that the threat of the Omicron variant is growing. Iranian prisons have also had pandemic outbreaks.