
Three-minute read
In the moral ledger of tyranny, the offer of “clemency” from a regime that has drenched its gallows in the blood of the innocent is not compassion—it is contempt. On 12 May 2026, two elite students of Sharif University of Technology, political prisoners Amirhossein Moradi and Ali Younesi, both charged with affiliation to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), delivered letters that will echo long after the ink has dried. Their words are not pleas for mercy; they are verdicts pronounced upon the executioners themselves.
Amirhossein Moradi, writing from Evin Prison, a physics student and national astronomy Olympiad silver medalist, wrote with the clarity of one who has already measured the cost of dignity:
“The smiling faces of my dearest friends—Vahid, Pouya, Babak, Mohammad, Shahrokh and Abolhassan—in the moment of their separation and transfer from Evin to the slaughterhouse of Ghezel Hesar, who until their final breath refused to submit to the humiliation of your vile regime, stand before my eyes… I repeat what I said explicitly in September 2024: I neither want nor will accept your disgraceful amnesty. In response to the bloody massacres of January and the criminal recent executions, it is we, the oppressed people of Iran, who are in the position to pardon you—but know this: we neither forgive nor forget.”
The song “Rise Up Battalion,” performed in the yard of Ghezel Hesar Prison by 6 members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) before their execution, stands as a powerful testament to their conviction, commitment, and constancy in the ideals for which the MEK has struggled for more than… pic.twitter.com/kt5NDN0Lls
— Ali Safavi (@amsafavi) April 29, 2026
Ali Younesi, writing from Ghezel Hesar Prison, a computer engineering student and gold medalist in the national astronomy Olympiad, received the regime’s amnesty notice on May 11, 2026, for the remaining seven months of his sentence. He responded with the same unyielding logic:
“First, I have never requested amnesty and never will. Freedom is a right that has been stolen; we do not beg for what has been taken from us—we fight to reclaim it.
Second, I have role models: six proud, head-held-high cellmates who went to the gallows. Their memory is alive in me every day and every moment… It would be a disgrace for me to haggle over my own freedom when they did not haggle over their lives.
Third, Vahid Bani-Amerian said in his defense: ‘Is it we who must defend ourselves, or you?’ I say: ‘Is it we who must pardon, or you?!’
Forgiveness and amnesty are first and foremost the right of the grieving mothers and fathers. So, O grieving mothers and fathers, I ask your forgiveness for any shortcoming… What remains of imprisonment, exile and hardship is nothing but duty. We fight on the shoulders of your sacrifices, and on this struggle, we stand firm. Fighting for the freedom of the people of Iran is not a cause for regret or sorrow—it is the greatest source of pride.”
These are not isolated voices. Both Moradi and Younesi were convicted on charges of membership in and collaboration with the PMOI. Separately, Ali Younesi’s father, Mir Yousef Younesi, was arrested in early January 2023 and sentenced by the Revolutionary Court to five years in prison.
State media and the Ministry of Intelligence explicitly charged him with “cooperation with the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization” and participation in a “financial network supporting the operational teams” of the MEK inside Iran.
This case alone dismantles the tired propaganda of malign forces who claim the Iranian Resistance is sustained by foreign money. The truth is simpler and more damning: thousands of Iranians inside the country—fathers, mothers, engineers, shopkeepers—have paid for this solidarity not merely with their property and belongings, but with their freedom and, in countless instances, with their lives. The regime’s own courts have documented the domestic wellspring of the Resistance; they simply cannot admit that the fire is fed by the Iranian people themselves.
In Moradi’s letter, the six executed MEK members—Vahid Bani-Amerian, Pouya Ghobadi, Babak Alipour, Mohammad Taghavi, Shahrokh Daneshvarkar and Abolhassan Montazer—stand as living (and now martyred) proof of a generation that refused to bow. Transferred in chains to the killing field of Ghezel Hesar on in March and April 2026, they went to the gallows with heads held high, never granting the executioners the satisfaction of submission. Their relentless courage sends a thunderous message to an explosive society still grieving the bravest of its sons and daughters after the January 2026 uprising: freedom is never free. It is purchased with our dearest.
Honoring 6 PMOI members on the 40th day of their martyrdom: Vahid Bani Amerian, Pouya Ghobadi, Ali Akbar Daneshvarkar, Babak Alipour, Mohammad Taghavi & Abolhassan Montazer.
They gave their lives for freedom!
By Ms. Batool Zamani w/AI. @batoolzamani #StopExecutionsInIran #Iran pic.twitter.com/npkfbIpn3S— Iran Freedom (@4FreedominIran) May 13, 2026
While the regime, seizing on wartime conditions it has long awaited and feared, attempts once more to quell the unrest and stiffen dissent through a fresh wave of executions and show trials, these two letters—following hard upon the final testaments of the executed PMOI/MEK Resistance Units members—land like a waking shock. A society that has buried its finest sons and daughters does not forget. It does not forgive. And it does not bargain with the hangman.
The mullahs may have hoped the gallows would silence the Resistance. Instead, each refusal of their tainted mercy becomes another crack in the edifice of fear. History will record that on May 12, 2026, two young Iranians—elite minds who could have chosen silence and safety—chose instead to speak the truth that will outlive every regime court and every execution order.
The regime will soon regret what it has done. The people already do not.

