FORCED CONFESSION: Iran Upholds 16 Year Jail For Students After Forced Confession

Story By:  Ana MarjanovicSub-EditorMichael Leidig, Agency:  Newsflash

The Tehran Court of Appeal has upheld a 16-year-jail term for two students where the only evidence against them was a confession under torture to the crime of wanting a free and democratic government.

Ali Younesi and Amir Hossein Moradi, from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, were forced to confess to ‘corruption’ after months of solitary confinement.

The students were reportedly blindfolded while they were tortured and questioned and eventually dragged back to their university to admit their ‘crimes’.

Amir Hossein Moradi (pictured), one of the two elite students, who were each sentenced to 16 years in prison in Tehran, Iran. (@re.younesi/Newsflash)

Neither are said to have had access to a lawyer before signing their confessions.

As a result, they were jailed for 16 years by Iran’s hardline Islamic regime in April.

The students – both aged 22 – were accused of having links to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, which wants to install a free and democratic government.

Amir Hossein Moradi (pictured), one of the two elite students, who were each sentenced to 16 years in prison in Tehran, Iran. (Newsflash)

The students both denied any connection to the opposition group and said they only signed the confessions after torture.

The defendants’ lawyer Mostafa Nili also claimed that they “confessed after 50 days in isolation without a telephone call and without the right of access to a lawyer”.

The pair, held in custody since April 2020, were given 10 years for ‘destruction of public installations’ even though the only evidence was the forced confessions, five years for ‘cooperating with hostile groups’ and plotting against national security, and one year for spreading propaganda against the Islamic Republic, according to judiciary spokesperson Zabihollah Khodayian.

Ali Younesi (pictured), one of the two elite students, who were each sentenced to 16 years in prison in Tehran, Iran. (@re.younesi/Newsflash)

In January, a group of Nobel laureates called for the students to be freed after it was revealed there was no evidence to convict them on any charges other than the forced confessions.

In a joint letter to the UN Secretary-General and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Nobel laureates and academic researchers called for the immediate release of Ali and Amir.

The letter was signed by ten prominent academic figures including Professor Noam Chomsky and six Nobel Prize winners.

Ali Younesi (pictured), one of the two elite students, who were each sentenced to 16 years in prison in Tehran, Iran. (@RezaYounesi/Newsflash)

The letter states that Ali Younesi and Amir Hossein Moradi were subjected to mental and physical torture and other forms of ill-treatment, such as forced confession. The letter described them as political prisoners.

Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, co-founder and spokesperson for the NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), said: “This unjust conviction is the result of an extrajudicial process engineered by the security agencies, intended to repress and create fear amongst students.”

Hadi Ghaemi, executive director for the Center for Human Rights in Iran, said: “Universities should be centres of free thought and expression, yet in Iran countless students have been expelled and or imprisoned for exercising these rights.”

Ali Younesi (pictured), one of the two elite students, who were each sentenced to 16 years in prison in Tehran, Iran. (Newsflash)

The students’ lawyer appealed the sentence, but announced on 6th June that it had been upheld by the Tehran Court of Appeal.

He added that he will seek a retrial at the Supreme Court of Iran, the highest juridical authority in the Islamic Republic.