Iranian soldier sentenced to death for refusing to fire on protesters during nationwide unrest
A young soldier who refused to obey orders to shoot protesters during one of Iran’s most intense waves of nationwide unrest has been sentenced to death, a human rights group reported Tuesday.
The Iran Human Rights Society (IHRS) identified the soldier as Javid Khales, who was arrested during the nationwide protests of 1404, a major wave of anti-regime demonstrations from late 2025 to early 2026 calling for an end to the country’s current dictatorship.
“According to informed sources, when faced with the command to shoot at protesting people, he refused to execute the order, leading to his immediate arrest and the opening of a case against him,” IHRS said.
Witnesses claimed Khales, now in Isfahan prison, did not commit a crime but refused to shoot in an act of humanity, the group said.
LINDSEY GRAHAM SPEAKS AGAINST PENDING EXECUTION OF 26-YEAR-OLD IRANIAN PROTESTER: ‘THIS REGIME MUST FALL’
While the unrest has already led to thousands of arrests and deaths among protesters, Khales’ planned execution further raises concerns over unfair, state-sanctioned killings and rushed trials that deny defendants proper legal protections.
“Amid the continuation of protests and the intensification of deadly repression against the people, the news of Javid Khales — a young soldier who refused to shoot at protesters — being sentenced to death has heightened concerns about a new wave of judicial massacre,” the human rights group said.
“This sentence comes at a time when judiciary officials have openly spoken of summary trials and the swift execution of death sentences against those arrested in the protests.”
IRAN ACCUSED OF KILLING 16,500 IN SWEEPING ‘GENOCIDE’ CRACKDOWN: REPORT
A judiciary spokesperson and the Tehran prosecutor, in separate statements, emphasized that cases involving dissidents must be resolved as quickly as possible, IHRS reported, raising concerns that executions could take place outside proper legal procedures. Human rights sources say many detainees have remained in custody without access to a lawyer or a fair trial.
The organization added that Khales’ death sentence is seen as part of a broader effort to instill fear, “enforce absolute obedience and intensify protest repression.”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Over the past several days, the government shut down and restricted the internet nationwide to prevent protesters from organizing. Human rights activists say the blackout was also a strategic move to conceal the realities on the ground and suppress public reaction.
Precise details were unavailable regarding Khales’ case, his current status or the judicial process.
American flags torched, riot police clash with protesters ahead of Trump Davos arrival
Violent protests erupted in several Swiss cities as American flags were burned and riot police clashed with demonstrators ahead of President Trump’s arrival in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum.
Trump is scheduled to arrive Wednesday and is expected to deliver a speech at the annual gathering of global political leaders and corporate executives.
His visit comes amid heightened tensions with European leaders after Trump doubled down on his push to acquire Greenland for U.S. national security reasons and declined to rule out military options.
TRUMP SAYS ‘YOU’LL SEE’ WHEN ASKED HOW FAR HE’LL GO ON GREENLAND TAKEOVER
The Davos forum, held in eastern Switzerland, is one of the world’s most high-profile economic summits, bringing together heads of state, CEOs, bankers and policymakers to discuss global trade, security and geopolitics.
Around 300 protesters marched through Davos Jan. 19 to oppose both the forum and Trump’s planned appearance.
Chanting slogans and holding banners reading “Trump not welcome,” demonstrators accused Swiss authorities of legitimizing what they described as authoritarian and plutocratic politics by hosting the U.S. president.
GREENLAND NEEDS US FOR DEFENSE BECAUSE ‘EUROPEANS PROJECT WEAKNESS,’ US TREASURY SECRETARY ARGUES
Images from the protests showed masked demonstrators setting fire to American flags, while local media reported smashed windows and other property damage.
Swiss outlet Swissinfo reported clashes broke out after police moved to disperse the crowd.
Officers in full riot gear deployed water cannons, chemical irritants and rubber bullets and said they were targeted with fireworks.
The outlet also reported a police statement said “paint bags were thrown at the facades and shop windows were smashed on the corner of Bahnhofstrasse and Uraniastrasse”, with the amount of property damage unknown.
Two police officers were also reportedly hit by stones but remained unharmed.
Similar demonstrations were held elsewhere, including in Bern, where a protest was broken up as police sealed off the city center.
PROTESTS EXPLODE IN GREENLAND AMID TRUMP TAKEOVER PUSH: ‘WE ARE NOT INTERESTED IN BEING AMERICANS’
In Zurich, thousands marched Sunday night, with one placard reading, “Put the Trumpster in the dumpster.”
Activists from the Swiss NGO Campax also projected a cartoon image of Trump onto a ski slope near Davos, branding him the “Spirit of plutocracy.”
Trade tensions are expected to dominate discussions at the summit, alongside talks on the war in Ukraine and broader global security concerns.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Trump addressed the Greenland issue in a social media post early Tuesday.
“As I expressed to everyone, very plainly, Greenland is imperative for National and World Security,” Trump wrote. “There can be no going back — on that, everyone agrees. The United States of America is the most powerful country anywhere on the globe, by far.”
Quarter of US colleges could close in the coming years; university president warns of major transformation
A university president is warning that up to a quarter of colleges and universities in the United States could close in the coming years.
Arthur Levine, president of Brandeis University in Massachusetts, said during a recent conversation at the American Enterprise Institute he expects between 20–25% of American colleges and universities to close their doors.
“Basically, what’s happening is that higher education is undergoing a transformation,” Levine said.
UNIVERSITY PRESIDENTS ADMIT COLLEGES ‘LOST THEIR MISSION’ AS TRUMP PUSHES EDUCATION OVERHAUL
“Our whole society is undergoing a transformation,” he added. “We’re watching what was a national analog industrial economy become a global digital knowledge economy. And the consequence of that, in terms of higher education, is that we’re seeing demographic change, economic change, technological change, global change, now political change. And what’s going to happen is that 20-25%, as you know, of all colleges are going to close.”
Levine said he expects many community colleges and regional universities to shift heavily to online instruction, while wealthier institutions may be able to delay major changes.
“Traditional higher education as we know it — research universities, residential colleges — are where the transformation is going to occur,” Levine said. “It’s only occurred once before, during the Industrial Revolution, when tiny, little church-related colleges became universities and technical schools and land grant colleges and community colleges and research institutes and graduate schools and all the rest. And, this time, what I essentially said to our faculty was, ‘We’re going to see the same pattern of change we’ve always seen.’”
YEAR IN REVIEW: THE MOST RADICAL COLLEGE PROFESSORS AND ADMINISTRATORS OF 2025
Some of the factors Levine said contributed to colleges facing problems include higher education being too expensive, its reluctance to change and changing too slowly.
“If something is very, very expensive, it ought to be worth your paying for it,” Levine said. “There ought to be outcomes that are worth the price that you pay. In 1842, the president of Brown said, ‘I can’t even give this stuff away.’
“It’s the nature of the beast. It’s not the first time. When the world changes, every social institution gets left behind, including higher education, and they scramble to catch up. Some spend a very long time trying to catch up. Some never catch up.”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Tax committee Republicans press for Treasury crackdown on nonprofits promoting fraud, ‘anti-American’ hate
FIRST ON FOX: House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith and all 25 Republican members of the committee are urging Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to crack down on nonprofits accused of exploiting the tax code to operate tax-free while promoting “anti-American and/or pro-terrorist ideals” and committing fraud at taxpayers’ expense.
The request marks one of the most aggressive congressional pushes in memory to revoke tax-exempt status, expand audits and rein in what lawmakers describe as systemic failures in policing the nonprofit sector.
In the letter, obtained by Fox News Digital, Smith and the Republican lawmakers wrote to Bessent, who is acting IRS commissioner, and Frank Bisignano, who is the CEO at the IRS, and warned of a growing pattern of tax-exempt organizations pursuing activity that falls outside legitimate charitable purposes.
Smith and the lawmakers said they were writing to “express concern” over “significant fraud, waste, and abuse of taxpayer dollars” and urged the IRS to “transition from the laissez-faire approach implemented under the Biden administration and utilize a more hands-on approach” when overseeing nonprofits.
COMER VOWS MINNESOTA FRAUD PROBE WILL EXPAND TO OTHER STATES AMID MOUNTING SCRUTINY
They cited the massive fraud scandal in Minnesota, in which officials at the nonprofit Feeding Our Future were prosecuted and convicted for stealing an estimated $250 million from federal social welfare programs intended to feed low-income children. The case has resulted in dozens of indictments and criminal convictions. Amid the widening scandal, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz chose not to run for a third term.
Bessent announced last month that he was opening an investigation into allegations that some of the stolen funds may have been routed to regions of Somalia where they could have ended up benefiting Al-Shabaab, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.
The case, Smith and the lawmakers wrote, “calls into question the current safeguards in place to protect taxpayer dollars.”
“It is unconscionable that the Biden Administration’s failure to hold the United States’s non-profit sector accountable has not only resulted in the theft of billions of American taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars, but the potential enrichment of foreign terrorist organizations overseas,” Smith told Fox News Digital Tuesday. “As the Ways and Means Committee continues to investigate every corner of the tax-exempt sector to root out this waste, fraud, abuse and illegal activity, it is now abundantly clear the system is in desperate need of an overhaul.”
“I applaud President Trump’s bold move to hold bad actors in the Minnesota Somali fraud scheme accountable and look forward to working with his Administration to ensure this rampant fraud is ended once and for all,” Smith added.
Along with Smith, the other 25 Republican lawmakers from the Ways and Means Committee who signed the letter are: Reps. Jodey Arrington, Aaron Bean, Vern Buchanan, Mike Carey, Ron Estes, Randy Feenstra, Michelle Fischbach, Brian Fitzpatrick, Kevin Hern, Darin LaHood, Mike Kelly, David Kustoff, Max Miller, Nicole Malliotakis, Carol Miller, Blake Moore, Nathaniel Moran, Greg Murphy, Adrian Smith, Lloyd Smucker, David Schweikert, W. Gregory Steube, Claudia Tenney, Beth Van Duyne and Rudy Yakym.
The House Ways and Means Committee has referred 11 nonprofits to the Treasury Department for investigation and revocation of their tax-exempt benefits, citing allegations of antisemitism, illegal activity, terrorism ties and foreign influence. The organizations have denied wrongdoing.
They include The People’s Forum, a New York-based nonprofit that has organized nationwide anti-ICE protests over the past two weeks with its related organization, the Party for Socialism and Liberation. The People’s Forum is under scrutiny for alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party through its funding networks. Its primary donor has been Neville Roy Singham, an American-born tech entrepreneur living in Shanghai who has publicly embraced Marxism and promoted China’s political and economic model.
The People’s Forum has organized a national day of protests Tuesday with other organizations, including the Party for Socialism and Liberation, in their efforts to dismantle U.S. “imperialism.”
In the letter, Smith and the Republican lawmakers said the committee is “actively investigating American non-profits operating as extensions of the Chinese Communist Party.”
Earlier this month, Smith referred the Council on American-Islamic Relations-California for investigation and potential revocation of its tax-exempt status, alleging it may have “materially supported unlawful conduct, including endorsing and assisting disruptive and illegal campus encampments that led to hundreds of arrests across California.” He also raised questions about the group’s “reported involvement in overtly political activity and protests that devolved into chaos, violence and law breaking” in “conduct that may violate longstanding restrictions on tax-exempt organizations.”
Section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code was enacted as part of the Revenue Act of 1913 to encourage and formalize charitable, civic, labor and other public-interest activities by granting tax-exempt status to qualifying organizations, and today it contains 29 categories of tax-exempt entities, including 501(c)(3) charities, 501(c)(4) social-welfare groups, 501(c)(5) labor unions, 501(c)(6) trade associations and other specialized nonprofit organizations.
There are an estimated 1.8 million tax-exempt organizations in the United States, according to the IRS, with an estimated $1.4 trillion in annual revenues, making tougher oversight potentially far-reaching.
An organization applies for the special status, and, if they qualify, they are exempt from paying federal income taxes on money they receive that is related to their mission, such as donations, grants and program revenue. In addition, contributions made to these nonprofit organizations are also tax-deductible for donors, making the status especially valuable.
CONGRESS OPENS ‘INDUSTRIAL-SCALE FRAUD’ PROBE IN MINNESOTA, WARNS WALZ DEMANDS ARE ‘JUST THE BEGINNING’
Last week, Bessent announced the launch of IRS audits of financial institutions that “facilitated the laundering of Minnesota funds,” along with the creation of a task force focused on fraud and abuse involving 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.
In their letter, Smith and Republican lawmakers urged Bessent to “use your authority at the IRS to hold tax-exempt organizations accountable” and to ensure that schemes like Feeding Our Future “cannot happen again.”
Together, they said, the cases illustrate a systemic failure to police the nonprofit sector.
Nonprofit organizations drew particular scrutiny after they led anti-Israel protests following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists. In late September 2024, Smith sent a letter to New York Attorney General Letitia James urging an investigation into The People’s Forum and the Westchester Peace Action Committee Foundation, known also as WESPAC, alleging they had “aided and abetted riots and unauthorized encampments across the country.”
“This conduct is designed to sow chaos and discord in our society,” Smith wrote, adding that it had “involved illegal activities.”
The committee has also urged the revocation of the nonprofit status of Americans for Justice in Palestine Educational Foundation and American Muslims for Palestine, warning about “alarming conduct” by the two groups in their anti-Israel protests.
On July 24, 2024, Zaid Mohammed Mahdawi, 26, a leader of the Richmond chapter of American Muslims for Palestine, climbed atop a monument at Columbus Circle in front of Union Station and spray-painted an ominous message: “Hamas is Comin’.” He included the inverted red triangle, which is a symbol that Hamas terrorists use to designate enemy targets. The FBI arrested Mahdawi for destruction of government property, and he was sentenced to 10 days in prison. The ANSWER Coalition, which works closely with The People’s Forum, obtained the permit for that day’s protest, where a U.S. flag was also burnt.
Smith has also asked for the revocation of the tax status of the People Media Project, which publishes “The Palestine Chronicle,” alleging the group may have been “circumventing its tax-exempt charitable purpose by supporting the terrorist organization, Hamas.” The concern followed reporting that a contributor to the outlet allegedly participated in holding Israeli hostages in Gaza.
READ THE LETTER – APP USERS, CLICK HERE:
He has also urged revocation of the nonprofit status of Jewish Voice for Peace, a co-organizer of many anti-Israel protests that have turned antisemitic, and the Alliance for Global Justice, a 501(c)(3) that served as the fiscal sponsor for Samidoun, a group designated by the Treasury Department as a “sham charity” that allegedly raises funds for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
In November, former Georgia state Rep. Stacey Abrams shut down her nonprofit, the New Georgia Project, after the Way and Means Committee raised questions about the 501(c)(3) organization contributing funds to Abrams’ 2018 gubernatorial race.
Trump seeks Davos signing ceremony for Gaza Board of Peace
Plans are being put together at President Donald Trump’s direction to hold a signing ceremony in Davos, Switzerland, for the Gaza Board of Peace, Fox News confirmed on Tuesday.
Bloomberg was first to report the plans.
The Trump administration began sending invitations to countries over the weekend, asking them to become founding members of the so-called Board of Peace.
“Dozens” of countries have been invited to join the board, Fox News confirmed. The official invites went out Friday.
WALTZ HAILS ‘NIGHT-AND-DAY’ MIDDLE EAST SHIFT AS TRUMP’S GAZA PLAN RESHAPES REGION
Trump extended invitations to leaders from Russia, Belarus, China, Ukraine, India, Canada, Argentina, Jordan, Egypt, Hungary and Vietnam, among others.
Some invited countries have raised concerns about the terms of the proposed Gaza peace board, as participation would come with a substantial financial commitment, according to Bloomberg.
European allies are seeking to adjust the proposal and organize a joint response, including enlisting Arab nations to push for changes to the $1 billion permanent membership fee, the outlet reported.
TRUMP TOUTS ‘TREMENDOUS PROGRESS’ BUT SAYS HE’LL MEET PUTIN AND ZELENSKYY ‘ONLY WHEN’ PEACE DEAL IS FINAL
When questioned on Tuesday about French President Emmanuel Macron seemingly signaling reluctance to accept the invitation, Trump said, “Did he say that? Well, nobody wants him because he’s going to be out of office very soon. So, you know, that’s alright.”
“What I’ll do is if they feel like hostile, I’ll put a 200% tariff on his wines and champagnes and he’ll join,” Trump said. “But, he doesn’t have to join.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also pushed back on the proposal after Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Qatari diplomat Ali Al-Thawadi were named as appointed members to a separate “Gaza Executive Board.”
Netanyahu’s office said the move was not coordinated with Israel and “runs contrary to its policy.”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
The White House said on Friday that Trump will chair the Board of Peace and be joined by a group of senior political, diplomatic and business figures, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and billionaire Marc Rowan, among others.