Ali Younesi’s Family Reacts to Public Interrogation Session of Two Detained Students at Tehran Public Prosecutor’s Office
Following the public interrogation session of Amirhossein Moradi and Ali Younesi, two detained students, members of Ali Younesi’s family protested this action and the two students’ lack of access to a lawyer.
Aida Younesi, Ali Younesi’s sister, on Friday, July 27, by posting a message on Twitter, referring to the condition of her brother and Amirhossein Moradi, bringing these two students to a public interrogation session, under circumstances where “due to threats and psychological torture and concern about the families’ situation, they do not have the ability to speak clearly,” called it injustice.
In another Twitter message, she published a quote from one of those present at the session and wrote: “What did you do that they can’t speak properly and consecutively.”
The quote stated: “When it’s the kids’ turn to speak; what they say is incomprehensible, you can’t tell what the next sentence is. They leave each sentence halfway and move to the next one. First, they are confused about what they should say and what they shouldn’t. Maybe this stutter was because of the stress they were under.”
Ali Younesi had said in this session that he was worried about his family.
This public interrogation session, which was subsequently converted into a confession-taking by the representative of the judiciary, was held on Monday with the presence of several representatives from Sharif University of Technology and representatives of the judiciary at the General Prosecutor’s Office of Tehran.
Based on the text of the session prepared by one of the university representatives, in this session Amirhossein Moradi and Ali Younesi did not specifically accept any charges, and subsequently when the judicial representative insisted on accepting charges, he faced a reaction from a number of student representatives who protested “pressuring” Ali Younesi. One of the students said: “We also did not come here for confession-taking. Let them be at ease.”
Reza Younesi, Ali Younesi’s brother, wrote on his Twitter that the families of these two detained students had no information about their public interrogation session. He also protested the fact that these two 20-year-old students were brought to a public session without having a chosen lawyer and without meeting their families.
He further wrote: “The session was held in the presence of Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi and a number of professors and students, some (and not all) of these so-called ‘professors/students’ are completely dependent on security institutions and participated in the role of interrogators to conduct collective interrogation.”
In this session, one of the representatives from Sharif University of Technology called for these students to meet with their families, to exercise the right to choose a lawyer, and to have the possibility of attending university classes in the next semester.
Ali Younesi, a computer engineering student, and Amirhossein Moradi, a physics student, on Friday, April 11, were arrested by plainclothes forces, without presenting a warrant and with beating at their residence and transferred to an unknown location.
These arrests are being carried out by security forces in Iran at a time when human rights activists and the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, following the outbreak of the coronavirus, have called for the release of political and ideological prisoners from Iranian prisons.
Also, Mike Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State, on Wednesday, March 25, at a press conference said: “We have asked not only Syria, but also the Islamic Republic of Iran to release not only American citizens, but all those who have been unjustly imprisoned in these circumstances. This is a humanitarian measure and beyond the fact that these people have been illegally imprisoned, in these circumstances the principle of humanity requires it.”
Source: Voice of America
