Esmail Bakhshi

On January 4, 2019 Esmail Bakhshi published a post on his social media page to confirm that he and Sepideh Gholian were tortured while in government custody and challenged the minister of intelligence Mahmoud Alavi to a live television debate on torture of prisoners in the Islamic Republic of Iran. He also described some the psychological and physical tortures they had suffered.

Bakhshi and Gholian were arrested again on 20 January 2019. According to Amnesty International, the timing of their arrest strongly suggests it is an attempt to silence and punish them for speaking out about the abuse they suffered in custody. In a phone interview, Gholian's father told a reporter: "At 7 in the morning, 12 male and 2 female officers violently raided my home, broke my son's teeth, assaulted me and my wife, and told us they'd kill our daughter."

On 4 February 2019, it was reported that Bakhshi's health was in serious condition while behind bars.

On November 18, 2018 Esmail Bakhshi was arrested, together with more than a dozen other workers, during labor protests at the local sugar factory in the Iranian city of Shush. All of those arrested were soon released on bail with the notable exception of Esmail Bakhshi who was held, without charge or legal representation, on the suspicion of crimes against "national security". The Iranian Ministry of Labor announced that it is unable to intervene on Bakhshi's behalf because of the nature of the case.

On November 29, 2018 The Vahed Syndicate, revealed in a statement that Esmail Bakhshi had been briefly hospitalized due to torture he had suffered while in government custody.

In August 2018, Esmaeil Bakhshi explained in an interview with the left-leaning Persian-language website Meidaan that labor protests at the Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Company go as far back as more than a decade ago, but as of 2018 the protests had become more radical, so much that the entire work force was on strike. As the spokesman for the Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Workers Union, he believed that the inappropriate privatization of the factory was the main driver of protests. Bakhshi maintained that the inefficient management by the new owners and their lack of knowledge about the process of sugar production had created problems for the factory. The decisions of the management were, according to Bakhshi, generally unwise and lead to exploitation of the sugar workers.

On January 17, 2018, the Iranian Labor News Agency reported that one of the workers of the Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Complex had been attacked by unidentified men. Labor activists confirmed that Esmaeil Bakhshi, the workers’ representative was the target of this attack. The incident took place on January 15, at around 5:30 pm, as he was leaving work for his home in Dezful. The Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Workers Union reported that after Bakhshi stepped out of the company bus, a group of masked men got out of two cars and physically assaulted him. Bakhshi's shoulder was injured in the incident. The public relations department of Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Company confirmed the attack. During the days before the attack, videos of Bakhshi's speeches had gone viral on the social media.

On November 18, 2018 on the 14th day of Haft Tappeh strike, Esmaeil bakhshi, Mohsen Armand (another trade unionist), Sepideh Gholian and at least another unnamed worker were arrested during a protest. The governor of Khouzestan Province confirmed the arrest of four individuals in connection with the ongoing labor unrest. Although the governor did not mention any names, the union made a press release confirming the names of the arrested individuals and also confirmed that they had been transferred to a Ministry of Intelligence detention center in Sush. Bakhshi and Gholian were held but the others were released a few days later.

On November 24, 2018 on the 20th day of protests, the workers held a picket line and rally in front of the offices of the Governor of Shush before marching to a nearby square. By this time the only persons still in detention in connection to the protests were Bakhshi and Gholian.

On November 30, 2018, it was reported that Bakhshi had been hospitalized because of internal bleeding caused by torture. Some sources, including The Committee for Establishment of Workers Organizations, had said that Bakhshi was taken to a hospital owned by IRGC.

The sugar company was founded in the Pahlavi Era as one of the largest industrial undertakings in the Khuzestan province. The government owned the company until 2011. In 2015, it was sold, for an unspecified sum, to two private companies by the Iranian Privatization Organization. According to the workers, privatization only aggravated their problems.

Esmail Bakhshi (Persian: اسماعیل بخشی; born 18 June 1983) is an Iranian political prisoner, trade unionist, and a founding member and spokesman for the independent Workers Union of Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Agro Industrial Company (Persian: شرکت نیشکر هفت‌تپه) in the Khuzestan Province of Iran.

In response to the reports that Bakhshi had been tortured while in custody, a group of Iranian lawyers and jurists released a public statement and condemned the torture and mistreatment of Esmaeil Bakhshi. In their statement they cited articles 8, 22, 34, 37 and 38 of the Constitution, articles 169 and 578 of the Islamic Penal Code, article 35 of the military penal code, article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions of 1966 and 1973 and article 1 of the 1984 Convention against Torture.