The Iranian writer and director Baktash Abtin, critic of the Tehran regime, died in prison after contracting Covid-19. This was announced by several human rights organizations, while on the web the news generated harsh protests against the Iranian authorities.
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Abtin was a human rights advocate, filmmaker and member of the Iranian Writers’ Association (IWA), committed to promoting free speech and against censorship in Iran. He has published numerous books on history, sociology and literary criticism. On May 15, 2019, the Tehran Revolutionary Court sentenced Abtin to five years in prison on charges of “illegal assembly and collusion against national security” and one year for “dissemination of propaganda against the state”, in relation to his authorship. joint book on the history of IWA, critical of Iranian governments for decades, and for visiting the graves of dissident poets and writers.
Abtin began serving his sentence on September 26, 2020 in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran. In recent weeks there had been a strong mobilization to demand the release of the sick writer, who had been hospitalized in a hospital in Tehran in an induced coma earlier this week.
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The Iranian Writers’ Association confirmed Abtin’s death and the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) denounced the responsibility of the Iranian authorities.
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