Iran is using the pandemic as cover for cracking down on intellectuals

Ali Younesi, 20, has a reputation as a genius among students and professors of Tehran’s Sharif University of Technology, where he studies physics and computer engineering. In 2018, he won a gold medal in the International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics in Beijing after securing a medal in the national Olympiad.

On April 10, he left home early in the morning to coach high school students for the tests to join Iran’s science Olympiad team. On his way to the school, he vanished. Alerted about his disappearance, Younesi’s family desperately tried to locate him during the day. At midnight, he returned home badly beaten, with his face covered in blood, accompanied by 12 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.