This week, the story of Navid Afkari's death sentence has been circulating. Afkari is a 27 year old Iranian wrestler who, back in 2018, took part in protests against economic hardship and political repression in Iran.

His death sentence is tied to his confession related to the death of a guard who was killed during the protests, but there are concerns that his confession was forced through torture.

Prominent people from both the wrestling community and the US government have publicly called for Afkari's sentence to be lifted. Dana White, the president of the UFC, released a video where he pled for Afkari's life and explained that he had called President Trump about the situation.

Iran, please spare Navi’s Afkarai 🙏🏻 #SaveNavid pic.twitter.com/HMeZA1yFup

— danawhite (@danawhite) September 4, 2020

White's call compelled President Trump to tweet about the situation and call for Iran to reverse Afkari's death sentence.

...To the leaders of Iran, I would greatly appreciate if you would spare this young man’s life, and not execute him. Thank you! @UFC @DanaWhite @FoxNews https://t.co/NkJb4IsQpt

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 3, 2020

Momentum around this story has been growing in the last week. On Tuesday, Ben Askren tweeted a link to a Jerusalem Post article detailing a number of events in this story.

All of you SJWs let’s go!!!! This man is being executed for showing up at an actual peaceful protest. Let’s get this trending and make something happen. https://t.co/k5KIki3sbS

— Bionic Ben (@Benaskren) September 2, 2020