Amirhossein Moradi and Ali Younesi were each sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Amir Hossein Moradi and Ali Younesi, two elite students at Sharif University of Technology, have each been sentenced to 16 years in prison. They have been imprisoned on charges such as “corruption on earth and collaboration with the People’s Mojahedin Organization.”
HRANA, the news agency of the Human Rights Activists Association in Iran, announced on Monday, April 25, the verdict of the Tehran Revolutionary Court against Amirhossein Moradi and Ali Younesi, elite students of Sharif University of Technology. Each of them was sentenced to 16 years in prison on charges including “corruption on earth,” “gathering and colluding against the regime,” and “propaganda against the regime.”
Ali Younesi, a computer engineering student, and Amir Hossein Moradi, a physics student at Sharif University of Technology, were arrested by Ministry of Intelligence agents in April 2020 and transferred to Ward 209 of Evin Prison. It is said that these students were arrested by plainclothes officers without a judicial warrant, and that the officers beat them during their arrest.
In May of that year, Gholamhossein Esmaili, a spokesman for the Iranian judiciary, accused the students of collaborating with the People's Mojahedin Organization. The families of the two denied the charges, saying they had been coerced into confessing.
Shortly after her brother's arrest, Aida Younesi posted a video on social media, saying that her brother was accused of collaborating with the Mujahedin because his parents were prisoners in the 1960s. In September 2020, Aida Younesi reported that her brother was pressured to make a televised confession.
Two years of “temporary detention”
Ali Younesi's brother Reza told Deutsche Welle Farsi in late February last year that he and Hossein Moradi have been in "temporary detention" for 22 months and are deprived of many basic rights.
Previously, Ali Younesi's lawyer Mustafa Nili had said about his client's conditions in Evin Prison that he was "held in a 2x4 cell in ward 209 with a drug trafficker and a corruption suspect. He is only allowed to breathe air for 20 minutes three days a week, and he is required to wear a blindfold, contrary to the law."
Amir Hossein Moradi is the silver medalist of the National Astronomy Olympiad in 2017, and Ali Younesi is the silver medalist of the National Astronomy Olympiad in 2016 and the gold medalist of the Astronomy Olympiad in 2016. Ali Younesi also won the gold medal at the 12th World Astronomy and Astrophysics Olympiad, which was held in China.
Tasnim News Agency has identified these two elite students as being linked to the “MKO group” and wrote that “in addition, these individuals had also carried out several other terrorist operations in different parts of Tehran under the guidance of the MKO.”
Domestic and international efforts to free Younesi and Moradi
Since the two were arrested, many inside and outside Iran have called for their release, including a group of members of the Swedish parliament and Gabi Roland, a member of the Baden-Württemberg state parliament in Germany.
In May of last year, 170 professors and faculty members of Sharif University of Technology wrote a letter to Iranian government officials asking them to release Amir Hossein Moradi and Ali Younesi on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr.
A number of Nobel Prize winners and academic figures also wrote a joint letter to Antonio Guterres and Michelle Bachelet, the UN Secretary-General and High Commissioner for Human Rights, calling on them to make every possible and practical effort to release Ali Younesi and Amir Hossein Moradi.
Their letter spoke of physical and mental torture and mistreatment to extract "forced confessions" from Ali Younesi and Ali Moradi.
The letter was signed by MIT professor Noam Chomsky, Richard Roberts, 1993 Nobel Prize winner in Medicine, Barry Bryce, Nobel Prize winner in Physics, Martin Shelby, Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, Randy Schmacken, Nobel Prize winner in Medicine, Jack Szostak, Nobel Prize winner in Medicine, and David Wineland, Nobel Prize winner in Medicine.
Last year, Amnesty International warned about the risk of execution of Ali Younesi and Amir Hossein Moradi and published an open letter to Mohseni Ejei, the head of the Judiciary of the Islamic Republic of Iran, calling for immediate action for them.
Amnesty International wrote in the letter that Ali Younesi's left eye was severely damaged due to the beating. He also said that the light in his cell was on 24 hours a day and that he had no sense of day or night, which caused him mental distress and pain in his head and eyes. Amir Hossein Moradi also reported being severely beaten during his detention.
Source: DW
