🔗 Share this article

In excess of 20 Olympic medal winners, coaches and further international athletes have signed a appeal urging a stop to the execution of a boxing champion and coach, who is sentenced to die in the country.

Increasing International Outrage

During increasing global condemnation over Iran’s escalating use of the death penalty as a means of suppression, the powerfully expressed statement censures the government's decision to uphold the capital punishment of Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani.

The athlete, 30, from the city in the northeastern region, was arrested for being involved in national uprisings in 2019 and accused of backing an resistance movement. He has spent half a decade in incarceration, where he has been abused and kept in seclusion.

“Sport is meant to promote hope, unity, and bravery,” the supporters expressed. “The capital punishment of a champion for his political views is a direct assault on these values and a admonition to any competitor who ventures to voice opinions.

Pattern of Executing Athletes

The statement pointed out that Vafaei Sani’s situation was part of a pattern and emphasized Iran’s past of putting to death sports champions for their views, for example a football captain, skipper of the football side, and a volleyball captain, skipper of the women's volleyball squad. In 2020, Navid Afkari, a young national wrestling champion, was put to death.

Further endorsers to the statement include a sailing champion, who captained the pioneering female-only team in a round-the-world competition and was the pioneering lady to earn a esteemed yachting trophy; the previous leader of the soccer side an athlete; and a sports figure, who was in the national team for the global tournament.

Detention and Unfair Trial

The boxer was detained in the spring of 2020. The charges against him included “spreading corruption on Earth through arson and damage of government belongings”. His sentence has been annulled twice but on October 4 it was maintained on the third occasion. His trial was condemned as “highly unjust” by advocates and bodies.

Appeal to UN

The call to halt the boxer's capital punishment comes after a 2023 appeal to the global human rights chief for freedoms, backed by in excess of one hundred rights specialists and entities, demanding measures to prevent the athlete’s execution.

Death Penalty Surge

Based on data, there is an “execution crisis in the nation, which has reached horrific dimensions”. In 2023, officials executed at least eight hundred fifty-three people – a nearly half increase on 2022. Last year, records showed nearly a thousand executions, constituting the highest number since 2015. More than eight hundred people have been executed so far in 2025.

Political prisoners and protesters are victims, particularly in the wake of the the year 2022 protests. Analysts say the Iranian authorities have utilized the executions to quell dissent, create fear among the population and reinforce their grip on authority.