Iran: Creates and opposes dead regime from Corona in hospital
Bagatash Abatin, who was a poet, writer and director, was jailed in 2019 after being convicted of security offenses and recently contracted the virus raging in the country’s prisons.
"Iran wanted to silence him in prison, this is a tragedy that could have been prevented"
News agencies
09/01/2022
Sunday, 09 January 2022, 08:17
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Dozens of prisoners in Iran have died in recent years.
Bagatash Avatin handcuffed to hospital bed (Photo: Official website, Reporters Without Borders)
Iranian artist Gatash Abtin has died of the corona virus in a Tehran prison, human rights groups said today (Saturday), blaming the Islamic Republic for the death of Abtin, who was a poet, director and writer.
"Bagatash Abtin is dead," the Iran Writers' Union said in a statement on its telegram channel. The creator was put into a coma in the hospital earlier this week following a deterioration in his condition.
The organization Reporters Without Borders, based in Paris, confirmed that he was dead. "He was unjustly sentenced to six years in prison and was detained at the hospital, a patient in Corona and barred from the necessary treatment." The organization blamed the regime for his death and posted on Twitter a picture of Avtin in a prison uniform, handcuffed to a hospital bed.
Hadi Rami, the director general of the Iran-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, said that Abtin died "because the Iranian government wanted to silence him in prison. This is a tragedy that could have been prevented. "The head of Iran's legal system must be held accountable for that," he added.
Abtin was convicted in 2019 along with two other members of the Iran Writers' Union of security offenses and "propaganda against the system."
He began serving his sentence in Tehran prison in Tehran in 2020.
Together with his two other imprisoned colleagues, Raza Handan of the Bedouin and Kiwan Bajan, he won the Freedom Award of the writers' rights organization PEN America last September.
In recent months, there has been growing concern among human rights activists about the deaths of prisoners in Iran, especially due to the spread of the corona in the country's prisons.
Amnesty International published a study in September accusing Iran of not prosecuting the deaths of at least 72 detainees since January 2010, "despite credible reports that it was the result of torture or other acts of violence."
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