The 2015 PEN America Award Granted to Sattar Beheshti

PEN America has awarded its 2015 prize to Sattar Beheshti, the late Iranian worker and blogger. The PEN New England organization, a subsidiary of the International PEN, announced on its website that by granting the "Vasyl Stus" award to Sattar Beheshti, it pays tribute to him and other Iranian writers and dissidents who showed remarkable courage against censorship, repression, and death. Voice of America reported that the award ceremony took place on Thursday night, April 29, at MIT in Boston, Massachusetts. This award is given annually to writers who have faced persecution and harassment for peacefully expressing their opinions and have resisted censorship and pressure. The award is named after Vasyl Stus, a Ukrainian poet and one of the last poets of Ukraine who died in a Gulag labor camp of the former Soviet Union. Gohar Eshghi, Sattar Beheshti's mother, expressed her gratitude in a video message to PEN America for awarding the prize to her son and wished that there would be no more political prisoners in Evin prison. This is the first time this award has been given to a deceased blogger and writer. Sattar Beheshti was a critical and anonymous blogger whose name became well-known after his death in prison. He was arrested in 2012 by the Cyber Security Police for publishing critical content about the Islamic Republic on his blog and lost his life due to injuries sustained from torture during detention. The court ultimately ruled, after much delay, that Sattar Beheshti's death was "quasi-murder" and sentenced his killer, who was a member of the police force, to three years in prison.