On the anniversary of Iran’s Student Day, Amir Hossein Moradi and Ali Younesi, two elite students who have been in prison since 2020, sent a strong message of resistance despite nearly four years of suffering harsh conditions in the regime’s dungeons.
Moradi and Younesi underlined the important role that students have played in Iran’s uprisings. They also stressed that the struggles of Iran’s people and students prove that Iran will not accept the Shah or mullahs’ dictatorship, and they will only settle for a true democratic republic.
The text of the open letter follows:
“We mark December 7 [Iran’s Student Day] in conditions that the Islamic Republic, in it fear of the next uprising that can continue until we reach freedom, is on the one resorting to mass executions and arrests and on the other hand is trying to spread despair, so that it may survive a few more days. This is a repeated experience that did not succeed in preventing the next uprisings in 1999, 2009, 2017, and 2019. Likewise, there will be no escape from the next uprising, which will come soon.
“Last year, students proved that they are an important part of the uprising and the events that followed. Today, as the young and informed segment of the society, they are putting to rest all doubts, such as who will come if [the mullahs] go. There is no plan for anyone to come, and the plan is to replace dictatorship of any form, whether the shah or mullahs’ regime, with a real republic and a democratic republic. The potential and effective role of students has caused fear in the regime, which has increased its repressive measures against students and professors.
“But students have proven that this is our true war and we will not surrender. This is a war whose victims were Mahsa [Amini] and Armita [Geravand] and all those who were executed or shot. This is a war that has been waged against the people of Iran for 45 years and will end when we achieve freedom with our own hands.”
Background
Younesi and Moradi went missing on April 10, 2020. After 26 days, the Iranian regime’s judiciary admitted to having apprehended them and holding them in custody.
Then-spokesperson for the regime’s Judiciary Spokesman Gholam-Hossein Esmaili said that these two elites’ students had linked up with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). Ali Younesi and Amir Hossein Moradi were accused of trumped-up charges such as being engaged in “diversionary actions” and “attempting to carry out sabotage operations.” The spokesperson of the regime’s Judiciary said that “Explosive devices used in sabotage operations were discovered when their homes were searched.”
The two students have been severely tortured and subjected to long solitary confinement. They were sentenced to 16 years in prison by the regime’s judiciary.
Younesi won the gold medal of the 12th International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics, held in China in 2018. Earlier, he had won the silver and gold medals of the National Astronomy Olympiad in 2016 and 2017. Amir Hossein also won the Olympiad silver medal in 2017.