🔗 Share this article

In excess of twenty Olympic medal winners, trainers and other international athletes have put their names to a appeal demanding a stop to the execution of a boxing champion and instructor, who is facing execution in the country.

Escalating Worldwide Condemnation

During rising international outrage over the nation's escalating use of capital punishment as a means of repression, the powerfully expressed statement denounces the Iranian regime's decision to uphold the capital punishment of the athlete.

The athlete, thirty, from Mashhad in north-east Iran, was taken into custody for participating in nationwide protests in the year 2019 and accused of supporting an opposition group. He has spent half a decade in incarceration, where he has been tortured and confined in solitary confinement.

“Athletics is meant to inspire faith, togetherness, and fortitude,” the supporters expressed. “The death penalty of a titleholder for his beliefs is a blatant attack on these values and a warning to all sportspeople who ventures to speak out.

Pattern of Killing Competitors

The appeal noted that the athlete's circumstances was part of a pattern and underscored the country's past of sentencing to death competitors for their views, including Habib Khabiri, skipper of the national football team, and Fourouzan Abdi, captain of the female volleyball side. In the year 2020, Navid Afkari, a 27-year-old Iranian wrestling champion, was also executed.

Other endorsers to the letter comprise a yachting pioneer, who led the pioneering all-female crew in a global yacht race and was the first woman to earn a esteemed sailing award; the previous captain of the soccer side Craig Foster; and a sports figure, who was in the Iranian squad for the international competition.

Detention and Unfair Trial

The boxer was taken into custody in March 2020. The accusations against him entailed “spreading corruption on Earth through arson and destruction of state assets”. His sentence has been overturned on two occasions but on October 4 it was upheld on the third attempt. His court case was criticized as “highly unjust” by rights defenders and organizations.

Urging to UN

The urging to prevent Vafaei Sani’s death sentence is subsequent to a previous statement to the UN high commissioner for rights, backed by over one hundred rights specialists and groups, demanding intervention to avert the athlete’s capital punishment.

Execution Crisis

According to data, there is an “death penalty surge in Iran, which has reached shocking levels”. In the year 2023, officials executed at least over 850 people – a 48% increase on the previous year. In the prior period, records showed nine hundred seventy-two capital punishments, marking the highest number since the year 2015. More than 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 protests. Specialists say the regime have employed the death penalty to quell dissent, instil apprehension among the citizenry and tighten their control on rule.