WAVES of protest have been sweeping Iranian cities and factories almost constantly for nearly two years. The adventurist foreign policy of the regime, combined with the vindictive sanctions imposed by the United States, have seen ordinary Iranians struggling to put food on the table and pay their bills.

The population in Iran is very young, with 50 per cent being under the age of thirty, born after the 1979 revolution. They do not share the emotional attachment to the revolution of some of the older generation. Many are well educated.

The tightening of sanctions and the intolerance of the regime however are forcing many young people to make stark choices. Leaving friends and family to seek work abroad is an option for those with the resources and qualifications. Increasing numbers are choosing to take this path.

Europe is a popular destination for many young Iranians and according to the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, “more than 47 per cent of Iranian asylum seekers have completed university education.

“Nearly 40 per cent of Iranian asylum seekers have a diploma degree. According to the report, only 9 per cent of Iranians had completed [only] their first year of high school, and no-one among thousands of Iranian refugees was illiterate.”

On October 21 2019, the Iran Diplomacy website wrote: “Over the past year we have seen a surge in emigration from the country and the acquisition of property and apartments in countries such as Turkey, Georgia and others by the Iranians… besides that, the wave of brain drain should also be considered. These are part of the damage that has been inflicted on the country over the past one-and-a-half years.”

According to World Bank reports, from 1989 to the present, Iran has consistently had one of the world’s highest rates of brain drain.

For many young people though, often breadwinners within their wider family networks, flight is not an option. Fight is the only course of action left open to them. Driven to desperate measures by the state of the economy and its impact upon their wage packets, young Iranians are increasingly in the forefront of those taking to the streets to demand change.

The treatment of those involved in such protests is becoming increasingly harsh. The massive protests which erupted across Iran on November 15 2019 are a case in point. The protests followed the sudden announcement by the Islamic Republic government of a triple-fold hike in the price of petrol. They quickly spread and took hold in towns and cities across the country.

The scale of the protests rocked the Islamic Republic and the authorities struggled to reassert control of the affected streets for at least a week afterwards. A huge mobilisation of the state’s intelligence apparatus and security forces continued into January. An estimated 7,000 people were detained during the protests.

Amongst these were Amir Hossein Moradi, aged 26, Saeed Tamjidi, 28, and Mohammad Rajabi, 25, who were alleged by authorities to have taken part in disturbances during a street protest on November 16 in the Sattar Khan district of Tehran.

Moradi was subsequently picked up by security forces, having been identified on CCTV, on November 19. This news prompted Tamjidi, Rajabi and another individual — referred to as Shima R. — to go into hiding the following day before fleeing to neighbouring Turkey.

Their desperate situation and request for asylum were made clear to the Turkish officials via an interpreter. The Turkish police responded that the three would have to stay in a refugee camp for a year while their case was deliberated upon.

On January 26, following the visit of Iranian president Hassan Rouhani to Ankara, the three were handcuffed and put on a bus having been told that they were being transferred to another city.

Over the next two days, without food or water, the men were driven to the eastern border town of Aghri where they were deported at the Bazargan border crossing along with 30 other Iranian citizens, including Adel Bahrami — another young man sought by the Iranian authorities for his participation in the November protests.

This was a clear and manifest violation of their right to claim asylum under the Geneva Convention 1951 and the Protocol of 1967.

Not long after their return to Iran lawyers announced that, “Amir Hossein Moradi, Saeed Tamjidi and Mohammad Rajabi, each of whom are accused of ‘Participation in destruction and incitement to confront the Islamic Republic of Iran’, have been sentenced to death.”

In another case freelance reporter Sepideh Qoliyan has been given a five-year sentence for covering a peaceful rally in 2018 by striking sugar mill workers demanding their unpaid wages. The sentence was imposed by the Appeals Court in December 2019 on charges of “assembly and collusion against national security” along with eight co-defendants who received the same sentence.

Qoliyan had to report to prison recently to begin serving her time after refusing to sign a letter of apology to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Some of her co-defendants who took part in the rally were pardoned.

Qoliyan was arrested in November 2018 in Shush, southwest Iran. Freed on bail on February 9 2020, she returned to prison on June 21. Her case brings into sharp relief the arbitrary nature of the Iranian judicial system, the criminalisation of peaceful protest and the persecution of independent journalists in Iran.

Inside and outside prison, Qoliyan has spoken out about her unjust conviction and the torture to which she and fellow detainees were subjected while in the custody of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry.

These cases all serve to highlight the growing activism amongst young people in Iran, increasingly forced to exist within a system in which they have nothing to lose. Their voices can only be heard through activity which the Islamic Republic deems to be illegal but, in most parts of the world, would be regarded as freedom of expression.

Codir – the Committee for the Defence of Iranian People’s Rights –  is calling for an immediate stay of execution for Amir Hossein Moradi, Saeed Tamjidi and Mohammad Rajabi and wholly rejects the lawfulness of their convictions and sentences.

The three men were detained in extremely dubious circumstances and were denied anything resembling due process from the outset. Their “confessions” have been extracted through torture by state security agents.

Codir is also calling for the immediate release and pardon of Sepideh Qoliyan, along with all other political prisoners held in Iran’s jails, and freedom for the press to cover the reality of life inside Iran without fear of imprisonment or persecution.

Visit the Committee for the Defence of the Iranian peoples’ Rights at www.codir.net.