The life of political prisoner and national boxing champion Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani is in grave danger following a series of alarming developments in Mashhad’s Vakilabad Prison. On December 15, 2025, authorities notified the 30-year-old athlete that the regime’s Supreme Court had rejected his request for a retrial. In a move that typically signals the final administrative step before a state-sanctioned murder, prison officials informed his mother during a phone call that his death sentence has been forwarded to the department for the implementation of sentences.
The urgency of the situation was underscored when Vafaei’s mother was unexpectedly granted an in-person visit with her son on the same day. These bureaucratic maneuvers follow a week of intensified pressure; on December 6, 2025, Vafaei was transferred to solitary confinement, and all communication lines to the prison were severed. These actions are widely interpreted as a clear and final prelude to his execution.
A travesty of justice controlled by intelligence services
Vafaei’s case stands as a stark example of how the Iranian judiciary functions not as an impartial arbiter of law, but as a repressive arm of the security apparatus. A boxing champion and coach in Mashhad, Vafaei was arrested in January 2020 following nationwide protests. He was subjected to 65 days of intense physical and psychological torture aimed at extracting forced confessions regarding his support for the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).
The legal proceedings against him have been riddled with such blatant flaws that even the regime’s own Supreme Court was compelled to overturn his death sentence on two separate occasions—first in late 2022 and again in mid-2024. However, demonstrating the judiciary’s subservience to the Ministry of Intelligence, the sentence has now been upheld again. Vafaei’s lawyer has publicly attributed this reversal to the “interference of third parties,” a euphemism for the security services’ insistence on securing a political execution regardless of the lack of legal merit.
Psychological torture and systematic cruelty
The regime’s vindictiveness extends beyond the prison walls, targeting the families of political prisoners in a campaign of psychological warfare. Vafaei was consistently denied medical leave and was cruelly barred from attending the funeral of his father, Mr. Seyed Ali Vafaei, who passed away in November 2024. His father’s health had deteriorated rapidly due to the immense grief caused by the confirmation of his son’s death sentence.
This inhumanity is systemic. On August 29, 2025, Mr. Valiollah Daneshvar Kar, who had campaigned on the streets for his imprisoned son Shahrokh despite his own illness, passed away. Shahrokh was denied permission to attend the funeral. Similarly, in January 2025, Khamenei’s henchmen prevented political prisoner Marzieh Farsi from attending the funeral of her mother, Mrs. Khadijeh Farsi.
A broader campaign of terror
The push to execute Vafaei is not an isolated incident but part of a systematic campaign to intimidate a society on the verge of change. He is one of at least 18 political prisoners currently on death row for their support of the PMOI. This list includes his own cousin, Mehdi Vafaei, who faces fabricated capital charges.
This escalation follows the July execution of PMOI members Mehdi Hassani and Behrouz Ehsani. Regime officials are increasingly hinting at repeating the “successful experience” of the 1988 massacre, during which over 30,000 political prisoners were executed, as a model for dealing with current dissent.
The Iranian Resistance has called on the United Nations, the European Union, and all human rights defenders to take urgent, concrete action. Mere condemnation is insufficient to stop a regime that views execution as a necessary tool for survival.