Iran court sentences two university students to 16 years in prison each

Tehran: Tehran Court of First Instance on Monday sentenced two elite university students to sixteen years in prison for having links to an opposition group.

22-year-old Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi, students from Tehran’s Sharif University, were each sentenced to 16 years in prison on charges of “corruption on earth, conspiracy against the regime, and propaganda against the regime,” the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported.

In April 2020, Iranian regime security forces arrested Younesi and Moradi and assaulted the students while they were in detention. The authorities did not issue arrest warrants, and the students were imprisoned in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.

As per media reports, on May 5, 2020, the spokesman of the judiciary accused Younesi and Moradi of collaboration with “The People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (the Mujahedin-e-Khalq or MEK).”

In November 2021, Amnesty International, which is concerned with the defense of human rights, warned of the danger of the execution of Ali Younesi and Amir Hossein Morad and called on the head of the Iranian judiciary to stop any step that would lead to the execution.

Many academic and cultural figures from inside and outside Iran also demanded the release of Younesi and Moradi.

Ali Younesi, a computer engineering student, won the gold at the 2018 International Astronomy Olympiad in China, while Moradi, a physics student, won the silver at the Iranian National Astronomy Olympiad in 2017.

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