Well-known Jailed writer and poet Mr Baktash Abtin has recently lost his life on 10th January 2022 as a result of being deprived of life-saving medical treatment. He contracted Covid twice and despite his critical condition and the need for urgent treatment, the prison authorities refused to release him for a medical reason or provide him with the medical treatment he needed to survive. He was murdered under the disguise of dying because of Covid.
PEN America, joined by PEN Sydney and PEN Melbourne, released a statement and stated: “Baktash in fact was killed due to the neglect of the authorities. The regime directly is responsible for his death “. The death of Baktash Abtin is not the only death in prison because of Covid. During the outbreak of Covid in Iran, the regime has not purposely released political prisoners, kept them in overcrowded prisons while not providing them with basic sanitizers and adequate protection, test or vaccine. Murdering prisoners by depriving them of medical treatment has been a longstanding practice by the Islamic regime in Iran. However, the regime has further seized the opportunity created by the pandemic to murder more of the political prisoners.
The death of Baktash Abtin once more invoked the important issue of the deliberate killing of political prisoners by the Islamic regime by depriving them of the life-saving medical care they need.
Although depriving prisoners of medical attention has been used as a method of torture and killing for more than four decades, this method has been used more routinely and systematically in recent years. The killings of political prisoners are effectively achieved by deliberately withholding urgently needed medical care. Medical treatment is usually required to treat the injuries prisoners sustained during extended bouts of torture, or for pre-existing conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, or heart disease, and recently Covid during the pandemic. The authorities then simply report that the victim died of natural causes, Covid, diabetes, and other bogus reasons while serving their time in prison.
These deliberate attempts have been set to exterminate political prisoners without executing them. The regime has also been using methods such as injecting prisoners with unknown drugs, giving them antipsychotic drugs, and sending some prisoners to psychiatric hospitals to further physically and psychologically torture and kill them. Some examples include:
- Mr Omid Mousavi, 27 years old, who was arrested in the protests of November 2019, was tortured for several months and died of a heart attack on 10th January 2022 as a result of being severely tortured.
- Mr Mehdi Salehi was intentionally injected with the wrong medication and the prison official intentionally delayed sending him to a hospital to receive medical treatment, which resulted in a stroke in January 2022.
- Mr Mosayeb Raeisi-Yeganeh was sent to a psychiatric hospital in October 2021, as punishment for standing up for his inmates’ rights.
- The wounded detainees, who participated in the protests in November 2019, were tortured instead of being treated for their injuries. Many of them are still in prison suffering from various life-threatening illnesses and injuries which have never been medically treated.
- Nader Mokhtari was beaten into a coma by security forces during the protests in November 2019. He gained consciousness but was transferred to a detention centre against the advice of specialised doctors. He died in September 2020.
The list continues. Currently, thousands of political prisoners are in medically critical conditions as a result of being tortured, being kept in horrendous prison conditions where the minimum hygiene and minimum rights are non-existent, even during the pandemic. They are exposed to life-threatening contagious illnesses, viruses, and diseases and above all, they are being deprived of access to the essential medical treatments they urgently need.
The EU, UN, and governments around the world must not turn a blind eye to this mass murder and method of silent executions practiced by the Islamic regime in Iran. Any negotiation with Iran over the nuclear programs, or any other matters, must include pressure on the regime in Iran to urgently and unconditionally provide political prisoners with effective and immediate medical treatments and to release all political prisoners.
Shiva Mahbobi
Spokeswoman for Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI)
Tel: +447572356661
How you can help
- Send an email/tweet to the Islamic regime to demand that the political prisoners must be provided with effective and immediate medical treatments.
- Send a letter to your government and ask them to pressure the Islamic regime in Iran to provide the political prisoners with medical care, and also to free all political prisoners immediately and unconditionally.
- Record and publish a short video clip and post it on social media to show your protest against the deprivation of political prisoners from medical treatment. Please provide us with a copy of the clip you have posted afterward so we can publish them too.
Sample letter and addresses. You can also send a letter to the regime’s embassy in your country:
Ebrahim Raisi Twitter:@raisi_com
Ali Khamenei Email: info_leader@leader.ir Twitter: @khamenei_ir
Permanent Mission of the Islamic regime to the UN Email: iran@un.int
You can also send your protest letter to embassy of Islamic regime in your country
You may use the following hashtags in your Tweet:
#DontLetTheirHeartbeatsStop
#iranpoliticalprisoners
Background information
About silent Executions by the Islamic Republic in Iran
The regime in Iran has devised a new method of executing its political prisoners silently away from the watchful eye of the world. Every time, the Islamic regime in Iran has announced executions of political prisoners in the past; it has faced serious international outcries. These “silent executions”, as dubbed by activists, are not officially reported by the authorities and therefore go undetected by the public and the international human rights bodies. Presently, hundreds of political prisoners are dying by being purposely denied medication, surgery, or even the most basic medical care. Dozens of political prisoners have already died an agonising and slow death as a result of this method. Many more are suffering from serious illnesses and their families urgently ask authorities for help, to no avail.
In October 2013, the Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI) initiated a campaign called “Don’t let their heartbeats stop!” to support those political prisoners in Iran who are deprived of medical attention. Please see the report by Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI) https://wp.me/p9yWrK-2jr
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Please also see the following two reports:
Amnesty International
Iran: Health taken hostage: cruel denial of medical care in Iran’s prisons – Amnesty International
Ban Ki-Moon Report to UN 69th General Assembly
