Iran | Champion Boxer Mohammad Javad Vafaei’s Death Sentence Upheld, Forwarded for Implementation

On December 15, 2025, Mohammad Javad Vafaei was notified at Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad that his request for a retrial had been rejected by the regime’s Supreme Court.

On the same day, Javad’s mother was unexpectedly granted an in-person visit with her son at Vakilabad Prison, a move that could signal his imminent execution. Furthermore, she was informed in a phone call from the prison that his sentence has been forwarded to the department for the implementation of sentences in Mashhad. His life is now in grave danger.

Javad, 30, a boxing champion and coach in Mashhad and a national silver medalist, was arrested in January 2020. After enduring severe torture, he was sentenced to death on charges of membership in the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). The regime’s Supreme Court has now upheld this sentence three times.

Since his arrest, Javad has been denied any medical leave and was also barred by the regime’s henchmen from attending his father’s funeral. His father, Mr. Seyed Ali Vafaei, passed away last November after his health deteriorated from the immense grief over the confirmation of his son’s death sentence.

The vindictiveness of the regime’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and its judiciary towards the PMOI and their families is beyond imagination. On August 29, 2025, Mr. Valiollah Daneshvar Kar, the father of political prisoner Shahrokh Daneshvar Kar, passed away.

Despite his illness, he had campaigned for his son on the streets, holding his picture and chanting, ‘No to execution.’ Shahrokh was not permitted to attend his father’s funeral. Similarly, in January 2025, when Mrs. Khadijeh Farsi—the mother of political prisoner Marzieh Farsi and the martyred PMOI member Hassan Farsi—passed away, Khamenei’s henchmen prevented Marzieh from attending her mother’s funeral. Three of her other children (Hossein, Azam, and Maryam) are PMOI members in Ashraf.

The Iranian Resistance once again calls on the United Nations and its relevant bodies, the European Union and its member states, and all human rights defenders to take urgent action to save the life of Mohammad Javad Vafaei and other political prisoners on death row.

Source: NCRI, Staff, December 16, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

Comments

Texas | Jury recommends death penalty for man convicted of killing San Benito police lieutenant

A Cameron County jury recommended the death penalty for Rogelio Martinez for killing a San Benito police lieutenant during a police chase in Brownsville. Martinez stared forward as the judge announced the recommendation. Lt. Milton Resendez's family told Martinez in court that their lives will never be the same. Resendez's wife and siblings walked past cameras and declined to speak with reporters. Inside the courtroom, where no audio or video recording was allowed, Resendez's sister Jackie raised her voice at Martinez during impact statements.

Alabama | Brian Martin sentenced to death in killing of Sheffield Sgt. Nick Risner

Brian Lansing Martin was sentenced to death Monday for killing Sheffield Police Sgt. Nick Risner, whose death prompted Alabama lawmakers to restrict early-release credits for inmates convicted of killing someone with a deadly weapon. A Colbert County judge formally imposed the sentence Oct. 26, following a jury’s unanimous recommendation in September, WAFF reported. “Today’s sentence represents justice and accountability for the murder of Sergeant Nick Risner,” Colbert County District Attorney Hal Hughston said in a statement quoted by the station.

Indiana governor rejects brain scans for death row inmate ahead of execution

Gov. Mike Braun is still weighing Jeffrey Weisheit’s clemency request, however. Gov. Mike Braun’s administration will not allow death row inmate Jeffrey Weisheit to undergo additional brain scans before his scheduled execution next week. The decision follows weeks of legal efforts by his attorneys to obtain additional medical evidence for his clemency case. Braun’s general counsel, Stephanie Flittner, met with Weisheit’s legal team Wednesday to discuss the testing and his pending clemency request.

Florida | Bunnell man sentenced to death for fatally stabbing wife outside their home in 2024

A Flagler County judge sentenced Jermaine Mandell Williams Sr. to death Monday for stabbing his wife outside their Bunnell home in 2024. Williams, 34, was convicted of 1st-degree murder in July. Jurors deliberated about 20 minutes before finding him guilty and later voted 11-1 to recommend the death penalty. The attack happened Aug. 2, 2024. Surveillance video and testimony showed Williams went inside the home, returned with an 8-inch chef’s knife and attacked his wife, Yolonda Charmaine Williams, in the street, according to court and prosecution accounts. She was stabbed 19 to 20 times and later died at a hospital.

‘I’m Not Incompetent’ Christa Pike’s execution doctor, Mark Fowler, speaks.

Dr. Mark Fowler knew something was wrong after 45 minutes passed without word from the warden. In most cases, executions take no more than ten minutes. When he was summoned from his waiting room to the chamber next door, he saw 50-year-old Christa Pike, who’d received two lethal doses of pentobarbital that night, strapped to a gurney, gasping for air. “She’s not dead,” Fowler recalls the warden saying. “I thought, Well, in human beings there’s a spectrum of responses to medications and we’ll give it a few more minutes,” he says. Another half-hour passed. Fowler worried she might survive with irreversible brain damage. “She’s going to be in a permanent vegetative state with a quarter-million dollars in medical expenses.” He came back in and diagnosed her as comatose. The deputy commissioner ordered the execution to stop. Now, instead of taking part in Pike’s death, Fowler’s job was to bring her back to life.

François Mitterrand, the Justice Minister Who Sent 45 Men to the Guillotine

The socialist president celebrated for abolishing the death penalty in France sent 45 condemned men to the guillotine when he was Minister of Justice. In French political history, François Mitterrand is the father of the historic victory of May 1981. He remains associated with one of the greatest moral laws of the Fifth Republic: the definitive end of capital executions, carried through with Robert Badinter in the autumn of 1981.

Indiana Parole Board hears testimony on clemency for man scheduled for Nov. 5 execution

Jeffrey Weisheit set his house on fire in 2010, killing his girlfriend’s two young children he was watching. The Indiana Parole Board will now make a recommendation in the coming days to Governor Mike Braun on whether to grant clemency to condemned killer Jeffrey Weisheit. Jeffrey is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Nov. 5 for the 2010 murder of his girlfriend's 2 children in Vanderburgh County.

Indiana's governor turns down clemency request, says execution planned for Thursday will go forward

Indiana’s governor turned down a clemency request and says an execution planned for Thursday will go forward against a man who killed his girlfriend’s two children in 2010 Indiana's governor turned down a clemency request Monday and said an execution planned for this week would go forward for a man who set a fire that killed his girlfriend's two children in 2010. Gov. Mike Braun said he would follow the Indiana Parole Board's recommendation to let the death sentence stand for Jeffrey Weisheit. “The Indiana Department of Correction will continue preparations to carry out the court-ordered sentence of execution” Thursday, said Braun, a Republican.

Saudi Arabia executes woman, 'terrorists', 'indecent' couple, and juvenile offenders

Saudi Arabia carried out a series of executions in mid-October, including that of a woman convicted of killing her mother and attempting to kill her sister, alongside five men in the Eastern Province. Official statements described the five as terrorists; human rights groups described them as political prisoners sentenced under discretionary (ta’zir) penalties, one of whom was a child at the time of the alleged acts. The cases illustrate the kingdom’s continued use of the death penalty under Sharia, its stated commitment to public order and justice, and criticism from human rights organizations over the scope of capital punishment.

Medical experts shocked by Tennessee team’s ‘malpractice’ in Christa Pike’s failed execution

New details of IV team’s attempts to find a vein shared by Pike’s lawyer ‘shocked and disturbed’ practitioners Medical experts have expressed shock at the apparent incompetence shown by Tennessee’s execution team during the failed lethal injection of Christa Pike , the prisoner who survived a normally fatal dose of pentobarbital, which they say would be considered medical malpractice in any other setting.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog