Iranian boxing champion at imminent risk of execution as retrial request rejected; The Guardian, December 19, 2025

Sarah Johnson , The Guardian; Iranian boxing champion at imminent risk of execution as retrial request rejected

[Kip Currier: It's gut-wrenching to see such barbaric human rights violations and the specter of state executions against people like Iranian boxing champion Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani who advocate for basic democratic rights.]

[Excerpt]

"A boxing champion in prison in Iran is thought to be at imminent risk of execution after his request for a retrial was rejected by the country’s supreme court.

Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani, 30, from Mashhad in north-east Iran was arrested in 2020 for taking part in nationwide democracy protests in 2019 and accused of supporting an opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK). He has spent five years in prison, where he has been tortured and put in solitary confinement...

Vafaei Sani was convicted of “corruption on Earth” and sentenced to death for a third time in September 2024 after “a grossly unfair trial”, according to Amnesty International. The supreme court upheld his death sentence on 4 October.

Nassim Papayianni, Amnesty International’s senior campaigner on Iran, called on the Iranian authorities to immediately halt any plans to carry out Vafaei Sani’s execution and quash his conviction and death sentence."

Olympians call on Iran to halt execution of boxing champion; The Guardian, November 11, 2025

Sarah Johnson , The Guardian; Olympians call on Iran to halt execution of boxing champion

"More than 20 Olympic medallists, coaches and other international athletes, including the tennis player Martina Navratilova and the swimmer Sharron Davies, have signed a letter calling for a halt to the execution of a boxing champion and coach, who is on death row in Iran.

Amid growing international outrage over Iran’s escalating use of capital punishment as a tool of oppression, the strongly worded letter condemns the Iranian regime’s decision to uphold the death sentence of Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani.

Vafaei Sani, 30, from Mashhad in north-east Iran, was arrested for taking part in nationwide protests in 2019 and accused of supporting an opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (MEK). He has spent five years in prison, where he has been tortured and kept in solitary confinement."

Clearfield County will make $1M in 5-year contracts with ICE, Moshannon detention center operator; Spotlight PA, October 7, 2025

 

Ann Rejrat for Spotlight PA State College , Spotlight PA; Clearfield County will make $1M in 5-year contracts with ICE, Moshannon detention center operator

[Kip Currier: Following the conclusion of the 115th Annual Convention of the Northwestern Pennsylvania Episcopal Diocese, today I accompanied several Episcopal priests, a deacon, and a lay member for a prayer vigil where peaceful protests against the largest immigrant detention facility in the Northeast have been held for much of this year. The detention site is located near Clearfield County's small town of Philipsburg (a 30-40 minute drive from the main campus of Pennsylvania State University). Euphemistically referred to as the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, its blandly generic name -- and sign, seen below --  intentionally obscures its purpose and the individual people it holds. Numerous allegations of human rights and due process violations have been reported.]

[Excerpt]

"Clearfield County will make $1 million over five years to act as the middleman between ICE and the private contractor that operates the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, the largest immigration detention facility in the Northeast.

The county enters the final year of its contracts with ICE and the GEO Group as the Trump administration has intensified efforts to deport undocumented immigrants.

Moshannon — which had already been accused of physical and psychological abuse, inadequate health care, and poor conditions — has also come under increased scrutiny over the past several months after the hanging death of Chaofeng Ge, a Chinese citizen who was detained at the facility near Philipsburg.

Local advocates have protested, called for Moshannon’s closure, and pressured county commissioners not to renew the contracts for the detention center."

Prison Architecture and the Question of Ethics; New York Times, 2/16/15

Michael Kimmelman, New York Times; Prison Architecture and the Question of Ethics:

"Faced with lawsuits and a growing mountain of damning research, New York City officials decided last month to ban solitary confinement for prison inmates 21 and younger. Just a few weeks earlier, the American Institute of Architects rejected a petition to censure members who design solitary-confinement cells and death chambers.

“It’s just not something we want to determine as a collective,” Helene Combs Dreiling, the institute’s former president, told me. She said she put together a special panel that reviewed the plea. “Members with deeply embedded beliefs will avoid designing those building types and leave it to their colleagues,” Ms. Dreiling elaborated. “Architects self-select, depending on where they feel they can contribute best.”

What are the ethical boundaries for architecture? Architecture is one of the learned professions, like medicine or law. It requires a license, giving architects a monopoly over their practices, in return for a minimal promise that buildings won’t fall down."