Baktash Abtin was an Iranian dissident poet, writer, and filmmaker. He was an outspoken activist and leader in the human rights and literary communities in Iran. Abtin, who was serving a six-year sentence, died of COVID-19 after being transferred to a hospital in Tehran due to mistreatment and denial of medical care in Evin prison in 2022. Baktash Abtin’s last poetry collection, An Elegy for the Withered Flowers, was published by Baran Publications in Sweden in early 2024.