Ali Younesi, imprisoned elite student:
“We do not beg for freedom; we fight to win it.”

Ali Younesi, an elite student at Sharif University of Technology and gold medalist at the 2018 International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics, has been imprisoned since 2020 without even a single day of furlough. He has emphasized that he has never requested a pardon, and never will.

In a letter addressing the possibility of using a state pardon to reduce the remainder of his sentence, he wrote:“I have my role models: six proud cellmates who stood tall even at the gallows. Every day and every moment, their memory is alive for me, and their voices echo in my ears. They did not bargain for their lives; shame on me if I bargain for my freedom.”

In another part of the letter, Ali wrote:“Forgiveness, before anything else, is the right of grieving mothers and fathers. If I have fallen short in any way, it is only from them that I seek forgiveness; because for me, suffering, torture, prison, and every hardship ahead are nothing but the fulfillment of duty.”

Ali Younesi is not the only one imprisoned. His father, Mir Yousef Younesi, is also a political prisoner. After being arrested in January 2023, he was sentenced to five years in prison. Today, father and son are both behind bars in the same prison.

Ali Younesi, an elite student at Sharif University of Technology and gold medalist at the International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics, wrote from behind prison bars that he will not beg for his freedom. He described accepting a state pardon as a source of shame, and spoke of dignity, justice-seeking, and the grieving mothers and fathers who are the only true authority to grant forgiveness. Ali has been imprisoned for six years without even a single day of furlough. And he is not alone behind bars: his father, Mir Yousef Younesi, is also a political prisoner, and today father and son are both held in the same prison.