Iranians living in Iran and abroad launched an extensive Twitter campaign September 1 to force the Islamic Republic to rescind the death sentence of a young protester arrested two years ago.

The campaign began at 9:00 pm Iran time and after a few hours "#SaveNavidAfkari" became the top trending hashtag in Persian.

Navid Afkari, who is in his twenties, is a construction worker and a wrestler. He was arrested a few weeks after protests erupted in major Iranian cities in the summer of 2018, when the national currency was spiraling downwards, and the country’s economic crisis was deepening.

After months of detention Navid and his brother Vahid who was arrested with him were accused of killing a security agent and were indicted. By the government’s own admission, the security agent was involved in “suppressing the protests”.

Navid and his brothers denied the charges and insisted that they were being made scapegoats for the government’s inability to apprehend the real killers.

In audio recordings sent from prison, the Afkari brothers have said they were subjected to severe physical and psychological torture to confess to the killing.

Navid Afkari has said he was tortured for a long and sustained period to confess. “The Judiciary and the state TV aired my statements in bits and pieces as confession. I am innocent and for this reason they have no evidence showing my guilt. This is why their only weapon is a forced confession.”

Navid added, “From the beginning of my detention I have shouted I am innocent”, and said that he was kept in solitary confinement for weeks and “hanging for hours from the ceiling of the torture room”, and beaten with iron rods.

He also told the story of his trial in June 2019. He was taken to the Revolutionary Court of Shiraz where judge Mahmoud Sadati without any proceedings read an a passage from the Koran and announced that “I am a Mohareb (opposing God) and an enemy of God” and soon "he will personally hang me".

Navid’s brother Vahid in a separate audio recording from prison said he was severely tortured since his arrest and once attempted suicide. However, despite torture and threats against other family members he refused to sign any statement put to him by intelligence agents.

The only evidence Iran’s Judiciary has cited in the case is an alleged CCTV footage that has not been shown in court or verified by independent sources.

Hassan Younesi, the attorney defending the Afkari brothers has said that there is no footage from the moment when the security agent was killed, and the only existing images are from an hour earlier.

The attorney Hassan Younesi is the son of former intelligence minister, Ali Younesi.

Navid Afkari has said that Iran’s security agencies arrest and condemn innocent people without evidence just to show that they are all-powerful and can identify suspects