The attorney of Ali Younesi and Amir Hossein Moradi, the gold and silver medal winners in the Science Olympiad who have now been in prison in Iran for eight months, says the Islamic Republic’s judiciary officials continue to prevent the two students from signing the power of attorney to him.

Attorney Mostafa Nili said on Tuesday that the assigned paralegal has refused to allow them to sign the contract, claiming they need the court’s approval in order to hire their attorney.

According to the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the right to an attorney is a fundamental right, and courts are supposed to accept the attorneys that the defendants choose.

But the court had previously appointed a judiciary-approved attorney for the two incarcerated students and did not allow them to pick their own attorneys.

Moradi and Younesi were arrested and beaten in April by the security forces and were charged with security crimes. They have been in prison ever since.

Sources close to their families say the two were heavily coerced in prison to agree to TV confessions. The students were told they have to agree to confession in order to prevent death sentences.

Ali Younesi’s brother said the interrogators even tried to fake an interview with the Swedish ambassador in order to trick Younesi into a confession. He said the interrogators tried to take his brother to a building that was supposed to be the Swedish embassy and put Ali in front of a man wearing a tie in order to entrap him and film the fake confession for the State-TV.

Their attorney has reported “very strange events” in their case and said Younesi was told that as long as he does not agree to a TV confession, he will not get out of the security ward of Evin prison.

Nili also reported that Ali Younesi has contacted his family today and told them that he has contracted coronavirus and will be quarantined for 12 days.

Younesi is a silver medalist of the National Astronomy Olympiad and the gold medalist of the World Astronomy Olympiad in 2017, where Moradi won the silver medal.

The spokesman of the Islamic Republic Judiciary has accused the young men of having links with the Mojahedin Khalq organization and preparing for acts of sabotage.

However, the two are not known as opposition student leaders and have never been arrested previously.

Younesi’s family has repeatedly denied the accusations against Ali and insisted his arrest and imprisonment are just attempts to portray dissatisfaction in the country as terrorist plots.