On the morning of 20th of January, Sepideh Gholiyan was re-arrested in Iran. Agents of the Islamic regime came to her family’s home to arrest her. As they had no arrest warrant, her brother resisted her arrest. The agents beat him, broke his tooth and also arrested him.
Sepideh was originally arrested on 18 November 2018 while she was reporting from a protest of the Haft Tapeh sugar cane workers in Khuzestan province. Whilst in detention she was tortured and made to record a ‘confession’ of how she was spreading the news about the workers’ protest. Sepideh was released on bail on 18 December 2018.
After her ‘confession’ was recently publicised by the regime across its media, Sepideh challenged the regime publicly by calling it ‘cruel and corrupt’.
Esmaeil Bakhshi was also re-arrested in his home on 20th of January. Esmaeil, who is the workers’ representative of the Haft Tapeh sugar cane workers, was arrested at the same protest as Sepideh Gholiyan in November. He was also tortured in prison and forced to record a ‘confession’ in which he talks about having contacts inside and outside of Iran on how to organise the protest and how to work together with the steelworkers of Ahvaz who were also on strike. The Islamic regime is now spreading this ‘confession’ across its media.
After his release, Esmaeil Bakhshi published a letter challenging the Minister of Intelligence to a TV debate on why he was tortured and why telephone conversations with his wife were bugged.
The Islamic regime has stated that they re-arrested Esmaeil Bakhshi because he was allegedly trying to flee the country.
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