In recent days, the Judiciary agents of the Islamic regime have flogged 10 oil workers and sentenced them to hefty fines for protesting their dire situation. They flogged them in an attempt to silence the voices of protest in the oil industry. But they have badly miscalculated!
The abhorrent sentence of flogging against 10 skilled workers at Petropars Hoveyzeh was carried out by the Islamic Republic’s judicial agents. The workers had protested after being dismissed and having their contracts left unrenewed. They have worked for years on the South Azadegan oilfield development projects. Despite repeatedly appealing to local and provincial officials and authorities in Tehran to be reinstated, they remain in a state of employment uncertainty.
As part of their ongoing protests, the workers held a gathering outside the company. Following a complaint by Petropars management, they were arrested by police officers using physical violence and charged with offences including “obstructing passage and causing loss and damage.” On 4 July 2026, the Criminal Court 2 of Hoveyzeh—an instrument of injustice—sentenced them to the medieval punishment of 74 lashes and a fine of 200 million rials.
According to reports, as a result of the government’s warmongering and the extension of US military attacks into the region, many oil-producing areas have sustained damage, and a large number of contract-based oil workers have joined the ranks of the unemployed. These workers, having lost their jobs and their means of livelihood, have become a powder keg of social protest.
It is against this backdrop, amid its desperation and a society on the brink of explosion, that the Islamic Republic has resorted to flogging the protesting Petropars Hoveyzeh workers. Its aim is to spread fear and intimidation and prevent powerful protests from emerging in the oil industry, a key centre of the working class.
According to reports, despite this brazen act by the government, the protesting Petropars Hoveyzeh workers continue to hold their weekly protest gatherings.
So far various organizations, including the Organizing Council of Oil Contract Workers and the Organizing Council of Third-Party Oil Workers, have condemned this act of brutality by the regime and expressed their support for the protesting workers. Protests against this action by the Islamic Republic must be expanded as widely as possible.
We must not allow this barbaric act by the government against workers to go unanswered. The dismissed Petropars workers must be immediately reinstated and compensated for their losses. The company and the authorities must issue a formal apology to these workers.
Free Them Now calls on all international trade unions, progressive organisations and workers’ institutions to protest and condemn this despicable act against oil workers.
The government’s response is flogging, execution and imprisonment. Our response must be mass public protests, nationwide workers’ strikes and international solidarity and action.
Free Them Now (FTN): https://www.free-them-now.com/
Shahla Daneshfar: shahla.daneshfar2@gmail.com
Kazem Nik-Khah: kazem.nikkhah@gmail.com
October 11, 2026