🔗 Share this article

More than two dozen Olympic medal winners, coaches and further global sports figures have signed a statement demanding a halt to the death penalty of a champion boxer and trainer, who is on death row in the country.

Growing Global Anger

Amidst increasing international outrage over Iran’s expanding employment of capital punishment as a means of oppression, the powerfully expressed statement condemns the authorities's ruling to uphold the execution order of Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani.

The boxer, three decades old, from the city in the northeastern region, was detained for participating in nationwide protests in two thousand nineteen and charged of aiding an resistance movement. He has spent 60 months in detention, where he has been abused and kept in isolation.

“Competition is designed to inspire hope, unity, and bravery,” the endorsers wrote. “The execution of a winner for his opinions is a clear violation on these ideals and a caution to every athlete who ventures to express dissent.

Record of Killing Sports Figures

The letter pointed out that the boxer's situation was part of a pattern and underscored the country's past of sentencing to death sports champions for their convictions, including a national team leader, leader of the soccer squad, and Fourouzan Abdi, leader of the national women’s volleyball team. In the year 2020, Navid Afkari, a 27-year national competitor, faced the death penalty.

Other supporters to the statement include a yachting pioneer, who skippered the pioneering all-female crew in a international sailing event and was the first woman to receive a renowned yachting trophy; the previous skipper of the national squad a sports advocate; and Bahram Mavaddat, who was in the Iranian squad for the international competition.

Detention and Unfair Trial

The athlete was detained in the spring of 2020. The allegations against him comprised “promoting decay on Earth through incendiarism and destruction of government belongings”. His ruling has been overturned twice but on October 4 it was upheld on the latest review. His trial was condemned as “grossly unfair” by rights defenders and organizations.

Call to United Nations

The appeal to stop Vafaei Sani’s capital punishment is subsequent to a earlier letter to the UN high commissioner for freedoms, backed by in excess of one hundred human rights experts and entities, calling for measures to avert the athlete’s execution.

Death Penalty Surge

As per findings, there is an “capital punishment escalation in the country, which has reached alarming levels”. In two thousand twenty-three, officials sentenced at least over 850 people – a nearly half surge on the previous year. Last year, records showed 972 deaths, marking the highest number since 2015. Over eight hundred people have been put to death so far in 2025.

Dissidents and dissidents are targets, particularly in the aftermath of the the year 2022 uprising. Experts say the Iranian authorities have used the capital punishment to suppress protest, create anxiety among the citizenry and tighten their grip on authority.