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Iranian students and political prisoners Amirhossein Moradi and Ali Younesi
As Iranian universities approach Student Day (December 7), the regime’s attempts to stifle the country’s academic community have met with defiant resistance from behind prison bars. In a coordination of messages released from Evin and Ghezel Hesar prisons, elite students Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi have issued a manifesto challenging the “execution government” of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The two students, both award-winning alumni of the International Astronomy Olympiad, were arrested in 2020. Now, writing from the depths of Iran’s penal system in December 2025, they describe a regime in its “weakest historical position,” resorting to record-breaking execution numbers to mask its economic and social bankruptcy.
Rejection of Dependency and Reform
In their statements, both prisoners systematically dismantled the two prevailing narratives often pushed to pacify Iranian society: the hope for foreign intervention and the illusion of internal reform.
Amirhossein Moradi, writing from Evin Prison, addressed the passivity of waiting for external saviors. Referencing the geopolitical tensions of 2024 and 2025, he wrote, “Should we remain like those awaiting a messiah, hoping for the dispatch of missiles and drones from foreign countries? In that case, much like the recent war, freedom will not be brought to us.”
Message of Amirhossein Moradi on the Students Day 2025
Ali Younesi, detained in Ghezel Hesar Prison, echoed this sentiment, warning against the loss of national self-confidence. He criticized those who sit in wait for global powers to intervene, hoping merely for a “better jailer” rather than true liberation. He equally dismissed the possibility of change from within the theocracy. “Should we sit and wait for the reform or transformation of the massacre regime?” Moradi asked, noting that nearly half a century of looting has proven that “spontaneous change of the rulers is impossible.”
For these students, the path forward is self-reliance. “Democracy does not descend from the sky,” Moradi stated. Younesi concluded that in the “winter-stricken geography” of Iran, the only answer is “Struggle.”
The Cost of Resistance: New Sentences
The clarity of their message helps explain the regime’s desperate measures to keep them incarcerated. By August 2025, Younesi and Moradi had served over 64 months and were nearing the completion of their original sentences, which had been reduced to 6 years and 8 months. However, ostensibly fearful of their potential influence if released, the Judiciary fabricated new cases against them.
Message of Ali Younesi on the Students Day 2025
On August 9, 2025, Branch 23 of the Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Ali Mazloom, handed down additional prison terms. Moradi received an extra 15 months for “propaganda activities.” Younesi faced a harsher penalty: an additional 6 years and 3 months, exile to Kerman Prison, and a total ban on phone contact. The charges against Younesi included a bizarre accusation of “endorsing and supporting the Zionist regime”—a label the Judiciary increasingly applies to dissidents. This followed an August 5 ruling where the Judiciary, in a trial of 104 PMOI members, formally added “collaboration with the Zionist regime” to its list of fabricated charges against the opposition.
The Human Toll and the “Storm of Rebellion”
The prisoners’ messages were not merely political abstractions; they highlighted the tangible human cost of the current crackdown. Moradi drew attention to the tragic fate of Ahmed Baldi, a student who, overwhelmed by pressure by regime authorities against his family’s shopping stall, self-immolated, and Ehsan Faridi, a fellow student currently at risk of execution. He also noted recent arrests of university students in Hamedan.
#Iran|ian Regime Issues New Prison Sentences for Imprisoned Elite Students Ali Younesi and Amir Hossein Moradi #HumanRightsViolationshttps://t.co/8U5YJBxL77 via @irannewsupdate1
— Iran News Update (@IranNewsUpdate1) August 9, 2025
Despite the repression, including Younesi’s transfer to solitary confinement in Qom earlier in June 2025 before his move to Ghezel Hesar, their resolve appears unbroken. Younesi described the university as a torchbearer that has survived the “bullets of the Shah’s mercenaries” and the “Basij mercenaries of the 2022 uprising.”
Addressing their peers, Younesi called on students to “put the mirrors of your hearts together” to generate a “storm of rebellion and mutiny.” Moradi concluded with a call to action for the winter months: “In the winter of the homeland, one must resolve for spring.”