Letter to Protest the Unjust Detention of Students Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi for the Past Five Years

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran

c/o H.E. Mr. Amir-Saeed Iravani

Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations

622 Third Avenue, 34th Floor

New York, NY 10017, USA

Email: iran@un.int

Fax: +1 (212) 867-7086

 

Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian

President of the Islamic Republic of Iran 

c/o H.E. Mr. Amir Saeid Iravani

Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations

 

Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi 

Head of the Judiciary

c/o H.E. Mr. Amir Saeid Iravani

Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations

 

Your Excellencies,

 

We write on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) to express our deep concern about the unjust detention of Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi for the past five years, as well as about the failure to safeguard students’ rights across Iran. We join other academic organizations to demand both the immediate and unconditional release of Messrs Younesi and Moradi and the protection of students’ rights to pursue their studies free from state intervention and intimidation. 

 

MESA was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, MESA publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has over 2,800 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

 

Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi are students whose accomplishments, which have been recognized internationally, are major sources of pride for Iran’s academic community. Mr. Younesi was a gold medalist at the International Astronomy Olympiad in 2018 held in China, while Mr. Moradi was a silver medalist at the National Astronomy Olympiad in 2017. Both have spent the past five years behind bars on baseless national security charges following an unjust trial marred by severe due process violations.

 

Iran’s security forces arrested Younesi and Moradi on 10 April 2020 in a coordinated and violent raid. For 60 days following their arrest, both students were subjected to torture and ill-treatment in order to extract confessions. They were held in solitary confinement and barred from legal representation or even contact with their family members. In early May 2020, several weeks after their arrest, the judiciary announced that the two students had been arrested for purported ties to opposition groups, but it failed to provide any credible evidence. 

 

In April 2022, a court convicted Younesi and Moradi of sabotaging public facilities, cooperating with opposition groups, and spreading propaganda against the state, and handed them both 16-year sentences. Domestic and international rights groups, including UN Special Rapporteurs, condemned their politically motivated arrest and sentencing as well as the blatant violations of due process. In September 2023, Younesi and Moradi began a hunger strike to protest their unjust incarceration. In a bold move, both have also been participating in the “No to Executions” campaign since November 2024.  Specifically, they have been helping coordinate peaceful protests on this human rights concern from inside the prison. 

 

In March 2025, Iran’s Supreme Court ordered a retrial and their sentences were reduced to six years. While we commend this reduction, it is not enough. We demand the immediate and unconditional release of these students whose baseless arrests, unfair trial, and ill-treatment throughout the past five years are clear violations of their fundamental right to academic freedom and free expression. 

 

We further urge President Pezeshkian and his administration to more actively uphold students’ rights, and to safeguard academic environments from harassment, intimidation, and surveillance, in accordance with his campaign promises. 

 

Unfortunately, tens of additional students remain behind bars in Iran for merely protesting acts of repression and conditions of injustice, particularly since the 2022 “woman, life, freedom” protests. According to student affairs reporters in Iran, during the protests, over 800 students were arrested, more than 1,000 were banned from accessing their campuses, at least 600 were suspended, and over 5,000 were summoned to disciplinary committees. These committees enforced the Student Disciplinary Regulations, ratified at the height of the 2022 protests to intensify the crackdown on student activism.

 

Although restrictions on students’ activities have eased somewhat under the current administration, no independent body has been created to oversee the disciplinary committees or address student grievances under the 2022 Disciplinary Regulations. The Ministry of Science, Research and Technology (MSRT) has also failed to curb the unchecked power of university security offices (Herasat) which has grown since the previous presidency. By law, Herasat must report student infractions to disciplinary committees, but increasingly, they have been bypassing universities and filing cases directly with the judiciary. Without authorization from university presidents, Herasat officers independently harass students, block their campus access, and physically assault them during protests. Their treatment of female students is particularly violent, as they deny entry to those deemed insufficiently compliant with Islamic dress codes, an issue about which we wrote to you in our letter of 23 August 2023 regarding the suspension or expulsion of female university students for defying Iran’s hijab laws in solidarity with the September 2022 protests.

 

Students’ rights to free expression and peaceful protest are essential to cultivating the next generation of national leaders. Unfortunately, as these rights face mounting attacks around the world, including here in the United States, we fear a dangerous erosion of major gains in academia and fora for critical thought. We therefore implore you to defend students' rights to free expression and peaceful assembly and set a new course by releasing Younesi and Moradi, as well as all other students who have been unjustly imprisoned. Pursuing this new course could help strengthen the foundations of academic freedom in Iranian universities and serve as a model for other international contexts where students’ rights are increasingly under threat.

 

 

Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter. We look forward to your response.

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Aslı Ü. Bâli 

MESA President

Professor, Yale Law School

 

Laurie A. Brand
Chair, Committee on Academic Freedom
Professor Emerita, University of Southern California

 

 

Cc:

 

The Honorable Esmaeil Khatib, Minister of Intelligence

The Honorable Abbas Araghchi, Minister of Foreign Affairs

The Honorable Ali Bahreini, Permanent Representative of Iran to the United Nations, Geneva

The Honorable Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

The Honorable Mai Sato, UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran

The Honorable Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders 

The Honorable Tlaleng Mofokeng, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Physical and Mental Health

The Honorable Irene Khan, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression 

Mounir Satouri, Chair of the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights

David McAllister, Chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) 

Kaja Kallas, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy

Adam Romanowski, Member of Cabinet of Kaja Kallas, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy

Marta Temido, Vice-Chair of the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights

Łukasz Kohut, Vice-Chair of the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights

Michael O'Flaherty, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights

Kati Piri, Member of the Dutch Parliament (House of Representatives)