The poet Baktash Abtin should never have been in a rank, overcrowded jail that was a known breeding ground for infection. Unjustly imprisoned and shackled to his bed, he contracted the disease that left him with a fever, coughing, his entire body aching.
Abtin should have received immediate and thorough medical attention for his second Covid-19 infection in Iran’s Evin Prison. His family should have been informed. By the time he was granted a medical furlough and transferred to a private hospital where his family had access to him, his symptoms were severe enough that he was placed in a medically induced coma.
Baktash Abtin should never have died in custody.
The January 8, 2022 death of Abtin, a celebrated poet and filmmaker, free expression advocate, and one of the honorees of the 2021 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award, is emblematic of how the Iranian government appears to deliberately deny medical care to prisoners of conscience. Today, three years after Abtin’s death, the Iranian authorities continue to subject writers and other political prisoners to similar fates.
In 2023 alone, at least 49 writers in Iran were jailed for their expression according to the latest Freedom to Write Index. Several of them, including writer-activist and 2023 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award honoree Narges Mohammadi and poet Mahvash Sabet, have suffered from repeated medical neglect. While both Sabet and Mohammadi are currently on temporary leave from prison, they have been beaten by prison guards, denied access to family and legal counsel, and denied necessary medical procedures for extended periods of time during their imprisonment at Evin. These stories echo the concerns of multiple prisoners of conscience in Iran who speak out about injustice from prison and are deprived of medical treatment.
This pattern of deliberate medical neglect has even been acknowledged as a problem by the Iranian government, which supported a recommendation in a 2019 United Nations review of its human rights record to ensure that all individuals in its custody receive adequate health care and treatment without discrimination. The death of Baktash Abtin and the current news of other political prisoners who have been deprived of medical care shows that the problem remains.
Abtin was a celebrated poet, filmmaker, and board member of the Iranian Writers’ Association (IWA) who was sentenced to six years in prison in 2019 for disrupting national security and spreading propaganda. As evidence of these so-called crimes, Iranian authorities cited Abtin’s attendance at memorials of well-known Iranian poets and writers, circulating IWA member newsletters, and compiling a book chronicling the 50-year history of the IWA. In September 2020, despite his comorbidities and as the Covid-19 pandemic ravaged prisons, an Iranian court summoned Abtin and his colleagues, Reza Khandan Mahabadi and Keyvan Bajan, to begin their sentence at Evin prison.
Fifteen months later, Abtin’s health deteriorated rapidly during his second Covid-19 infection. When finally taken to a hospital with his family—having first been secretly moved between Evin prison clinic and Taleghani hospital, where he was shackled to a bed—Abtin was so ill that “he could barely speak,” his brother told IranWire. With 18 other human rights organizations, PEN America urged Iran to commit to providing Abtin with the best available expert medical care and release other political prisoners unjustly detained for their expression as a matter of grave urgency. His death was announced the following day.
Governments should never imprison writers for their free expression, and the Iranian government must acknowledge accountability for the utterly preventable death of Abtin. In response to a petition by PEN America and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR), in December 2022 the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention called for an independent investigation into Abtin’s death and compensation to his family, while urging the immediate release of other writers still unjustly jailed.
Three years later, efforts by Abtin’s family to seek justice for his death within the Iranian legal system have proved fruitless. Iranian authorities still deny and delay medical care to political prisoners, acting when their physical health is just at the brink and, in Abtin’s fatal case, they can no longer speak. As the health of unjustly jailed writers and other political prisoners remains precarious, the Iranian government must not enable another preventable, unjust death, and should commit to providing adequate medical care without discrimination.
