Mr Esmail Bakhshi is a labour activist and the representative and a member of Sugarcane Workers’ Syndicate ( Haft Tapeh) .
According to the news received by CFPPI, on Sunday January 20th around 11:55 pm, a caravan of fifteen patrol cars full of armed security forces raided Mr. Bakhshi’s house and took him away to an undisclosed location. The security forces did not show any arrest warrant and they took Bakhshi away while his wife and his child were present.
Sugarcane workers Syndicate in Iran strongly condemned this attack and demanded the immediate and unconditional release of Mr Esmail Bakhshi.
Bakhshi has recently published a letter in which he wrote about the torture he was subjected to when he was detained for the first time. His letter has inspired many victims of torture in Iran to come forward and speak up about their torture in prison.Â
Please see Bakhshi’s letter at the and of this press release.
The security forces also arrested Sepideh Gholian and her brother on 19th of January. Sepideh Gholian is a journalist and a student activist who were first arrested with Bakhshi and several other Sugarcane workers in the protests last year were workers demanded unpaid wages and a better working condition.Â
The arrest of Bakhshi and Gholian is another attempt by the government in Iran to silence the protesters in Iran and to stop the released prisoners from exposing the condition of prison and the horrific tortures they were subjected to.
We ask you to stand up to stop torture and suppression. Please send a message to the regime in Iran to demand the release of Esmail Bakhshi , Sepideh Gholian and all the jailed labour activists. You can:
-Send your message via Tweet to @HassanRouhani  and say that you support #EsmailBakhshi
#SepidehGholian
– Send an email the following authorities in Iran:
info_leader@leader.ir ,  media@rouhani.ir   ,larijani@ipm.ir
Sample letter is provides below:
We demand the immediate and unconditional release of Esmail Bakhshi, Sepideh Gholian and all the jailed labour activists. We urge your government to stop torture and imprisonment.
Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI)
www.cfppi.org
Facebook/IWasTorturedToo
For more information please contact:
Shiva Mahbobi, spokesperson
shiva.mahbobi@gmail.com     +44(0) 7572356661
www.cfppi.org
Esmail Bakhshi’s letter:
To : Mr Alavi, the Minister of Intelligence.
Dear Mr Alavi,
During the 25 days of my unfair imprisonment, in the custody of the Ministry of Intelligence, I suffered distress and agonies, which I’m still not free of, and for which I have had to take medications for my mental health. But I have been struggling with two main questions, which only you have the answer to, and it’s my right and the right of the honorable people of Iran to know the answers.
First of all, in the first days of my arrest I was brutally beaten up and tortured. I was unable to move for 72 hours and couldn’t sleep because of the excruciating pain. Until today, almost two months after those difficult days, I steel feel pain in my broken ribs, kidneys, left ear and my testicles.
The torturers called themselves “the unknown soldiers of Imam Zaman” (an eschatological redeemer of Islam), but insulted me and Miss Gholiyan with the crudest sexual insults and beat her up too. But worse than the physical abuse, was the psychological torture. I am not sure what they did to me to feel so broken and still my hands shake because of the tortures.
I was so proud but felt so humiliated and weak that I didn’t recognize myself. Still, despite taking medication for my mental health, I have aggressive panic attacks.
My first question from you who are the Minister of Intelligence and someone who is a religious figure is this: with respect to morals, with respect to human rights, and especially with respect to the religion of Islam, what is the torture sentence of a detainee? Is it right? If it’s right, how much of it?
My second question, which to me and my family is even more important than the physical and psychological torture, is listening to the conversation between me and my wife by your intelligence services.
My interrogator told me that they know everything about me, even how many times my wife argued with me about my activities. When I asked about it, he said they had been listening to my phone calls for a long time, which made me furious during the interrogation.
My and my family’s question from you as the Minister of Intelligence and a religious figure is this: is listening to the most personal conversations of people right morally and with respect to human rights and the religion of Islam? What gives your intelligence system the right to listen to the personal conversations between me and my dear wife?
So, Mr Alavi, I, Esmail Bakhshi, invite you to a live television debate to hear your answers.
Esmail Bakhshi
4 January 2019
