Repression of activists continues in Iran; two student activists beaten and arrested
In recent days, two student activists and elite students of Sharif University of Technology, Ali Younesi, a computer engineering student, and Amir Hossein Moradi, a physics student, have been arrested by security forces in Tehran.
The Campaign for the Defense of Political and Civil Prisoners announced in a report on Tuesday, May 22, that these two student activists were arrested by plainclothes forces on Friday, April 12, without a warrant and beaten at their residence and transferred to an unknown location.
According to this report, security forces searched the homes of Ali Younesi and Amir Hossein Moradi during their arrest and confiscated and took away a number of personal belongings, including mobile phones and computers, of these students.
According to the Campaign for the Defense of Political and Civil Prisoners, there is no information available at this time about the reasons for the arrest and the status of these two students. According to the report, Mr. Younesi and Mr. Amiri are both elite students in the country and holders of medals and top positions in Iranian and international science Olympiads.
These arrests are being made by security forces in Iran at a time when human rights activists and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran are calling for the release of political and ideological prisoners from Iranian prisons in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.
The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Javed Rehman, called on the Islamic Republic to temporarily release all prisoners on Tuesday, March 10. He stressed that the continued detention of political prisoners amid the coronavirus outbreak is “regrettable and worrying.”
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also said in a press conference on Wednesday, April 26: "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 act, and apart from the fact that these people have been illegally imprisoned, the principle of humanitarianism prevails in these circumstances."
Source: Voice of America
