Mahin Horri in an OpEd in Eurasia review of 25 relates that in a display of international solidarity, more than 400 prominent women leaders from across the globe issued an urgent public statement on December 23, 2025, demanding the immediate release of Zahra Tabari, a political prisoner currently facing imminent execution in Iran. The signatories include Nobel Peace Prize laureates, former heads of state, United Nations officials, and human rights defenders who have united to condemn the Iranian regime’s use of the death penalty to silence political dissent.
The appeal, organized by Justice for the Victims of the 1988 Massacre in Iran (JVMI), highlights the regime’s brutal gender apartheid and its specific targeting of women who challenge the mullahs’ tyranny. Signatories include former Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko, former Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey, and 2022 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk. They warn that in Iran today, “daring to hold a sign declaring women’s resistance to oppression is now punishable by death.”
Zahra Tabari, a 67-year-old mother and electrical engineer from Babol, has become a symbol of the Iranian people’s refusal to bow to dictatorship. She was sentenced to death in October 2025 by the so-called Revolutionary Court in Rasht on charges of “cooperating with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).” Her specific act of defiance was holding a banner bearing the slogan “Woman, Resistance, Freedom”—a phrase that has gained traction among female political prisoners as a call for active opposition to the regime.
The judicial process leading to her sentence was a complete mockery of justice. Presided over by the henchman judge Ahmad Darvish Goftar, the trial lasted merely 10 minutes and was conducted via video conference. Tabari was denied access to legal representation of her choice. Her persecution is also rooted in a historical vendetta; her cousin, Dr. Tabari, a PMOI member, was executed by the regime in 1983.
Tabari’s case is not an isolated incident but part of a systematic campaign of terror orchestrated by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Following calls by state media in July 2025 to repeat the 1988 massacre of political prisoners, the judiciary has accelerated the issuance of death sentences. Currently, at least 18 political prisoners are on death row for their support of the PMOI.
In early December 2025, the regime notified Karim Khojasteh, a 62-year-old engineer and former political prisoner from the 1980s, of his death sentence for “Baqi” (armed rebellion). Just one day later, the judiciary reconfirmed the death sentences of six other political prisoners—Babak Alipour, Pouya Ghobadi, Vahid Bani Amerian, Mohammad Taghavi, Akbar Daneshvarkar, and Abolhassan Montazer—in hearings that lasted only minutes. Furthermore, 22-year-old honors student Ehsan Faridi recently had his death sentence for “Corruption on Earth” upheld, despite his lawyer citing serious procedural flaws.
Boxing champion and political prisoner Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani, also faces imminent execution as the regime judiciary has upheld his death sentence multiple times.
This surge in executions—totalling over 2,500 since the inauguration of the regime’s president Masoud Pezeshkian in August 2024, with 335 executions in November 2025 alone—exposes the regime’s profound vulnerability. The mullahs are terrified by the growing influence of the PMOI Resistance Units and the younger generation’s rejection of the theocracy. The focus on executing educated professionals, former political prisoners, and young students like Faridi is a calculated attempt to terrorize the very demographics leading the uprising.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyxz5jken3o
https://iranwire.com/en/women/146016-iranian-woman-sentenced-to-death-after-10-minute-trial/
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 