A Bahai poet and writer is set to be returned to prison in Iran after undergoing open-heart surgery, a France-based group representing Iran's largest religious minority said Thursday.
Mahvash Sabet, 71, is serving a second 10-year jail sentence following her arrest in 2022 in a wave of detentions of Bahais.
She had previously been released in 2018 alongside Fariba Kamalabadi, another prominent Bahai who was also re-arrested in 2022.
The poet "recently underwent open-heart surgery and will be returned to prison very soon," the Bahais de France organisation said in a statement sent to AFP.
They called for Sabet's "immediate and unconditional release" as well as for "her jail sentence to be cancelled and assurance from Iranian authorities that she will never return to prison".
While Iran allows some non-Muslim religious minorities to practice their faith, including Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, believers in Bahai -- a monotheist religion founded in the early 19th century in Iran -- are not included.
With their traditional base located in Israel's third-largest city, Haifa, Bahai are seen by Iranian authorities as both heretics and spies with connections to the state's sworn enemy.
It is unknown how many Bahai live in Iran, but the figure could be as high as several hundreds of thousands.
The minority is not represented in parliament.
Poet Sabet "has already been denied appropriate medical treatment several times during her imprisonment, despite serious and worsening health problems," the French Bahai organisation said.
"Mahvash Sabet, who has been arbitrarily sentenced and held, has no place in prison," said Chirinne Ardakani, a lawyer who represents the family and the foundation of jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi.
"By refusing appropriate and timely treatment to political prisoners like Mahvash Sabet, the Islamic Republic of Iran is not only violating their rights, but using a strategy of attrition and slow death in allowing their health to degrade," added Ardakani, quoted in the Bahai group statement.
The UN counts at least 70 Bahai being detained or serving prison sentences in Iran, with a further 1,200 facing prosecution or already sentenced.
Campaign group Human Rights Watch said in April that persecution of Bahais since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution amounted to a "crime against humanity".