Elite Iranian students Ali Younesi and Amir Hossein Moradi are still being tortured on Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) Ward 209 in Evin Prison, eight months after their arrest, to try to extract forced televised confessions.

Their case was referred to Branch 29 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court in November, but still, they remain at Evin, where interrogators promise lighter charges in exchange for confessions.

Younesi’s sister, Ayda, wrote on Twitter that her brother was told his execution sentence would be commuted to life in prison if he admitted guilt on television.

She wrote: “The interrogators have told Ali and Amir Hossein that they are the ones who decide their sentences. They said they can issue death sentences unless they appear for television interviews.”

Younesi, a computer engineering student who medalled gold at the National Astronomy Olympiad 2017, and Moradi, a physics student who medalled silver at NAO 2017, both at Sharif University of Technology, were arrested for having alleged links to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) on April 10.

The 12 Intelligence Ministry agents who arrested them, without presenting a judicial warrant, also brutalised them. When they raided Younesi’s house, they attacked him, breaking his forehead.

The pair were then taken to solitary confinement in Evin.

Amnesty International has repeatedly urged the Iranian regime to release Younesi, who also medalled silver at the NAO 2016 and won a gold medal in the 12th Universal Astronomy and Astrophysics Olympiad of China, immediately and unconditionally to stop his torture and mistreatment.

In related news, political prisoner Golrokh Iraee was violently moved to Evin’s Ward 2A on Sunday, by prison guards who assaulted her with stun guns, because the Intelligence agents want her to undergo investigations.

Her family are concerned that this might be the regime’s way of extending her imprisonment.

Iraee had refused to leave Qarchak Prison for Evin when she was summoned with no reason on December 7, stating that the summons was illegal because she was serving her sentence in Qarchak.

Iraee was first arrested in 2015 for writing an unpublished book against the practice of stoning and sent to Evin. She was forcefully banished to Qarchak from Evin in 2018, alongside fellow political prisoner Atena Daemi, and went on an 81-day hunger strike until she was returned to Evin. fabricated

Iraee was released in 2019, but the regime a new case against her and Daemi for protesting the execution of three Kurdish political prisoners. She was rearrested and imprisoned.