Iran’s Revolutionary Court Sentences 2 Science Students to Prison for Opposition to Republic

A court in Iran has sentenced two award-winning science students to 16-year prison terms for opposing the Islamic Republic and endangering national security. Ali Younesi and Amir Hossein Moradi , who study astronomy at Sharif University of Technology, were sentenced on Monday in the Revolutionary Court of Tehran on charges of sabotaging public facilities, trying to cooperate with opposition groups and spreading propaganda against the system. They were arrested in April 2020 and have been held since in Tehran’s infamous Evin prison. “Ministry of intelligence agents beat them and held them in prolonged solitary confinement in harsh conditions to extract forced ‘confessions,’” Amnesty International said last year. The students reportedly will appeal the verdict against them.