🔗 Share this article

In excess of twenty Olympic medal winners, trainers and additional global sports figures have signed a statement calling for a end to the execution of a boxing titleholder and coach, who is facing execution in the nation.

Growing Global Anger

Amidst rising global condemnation over the nation's escalating use of capital punishment as a means of suppression, the powerfully expressed statement censures the government's verdict to maintain the execution order of Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani.

The athlete, 30, from the city in north-east Iran, was detained for being involved in national uprisings in two thousand nineteen and indicted of aiding an resistance movement. He has spent five years in detention, where he has been mistreated and kept in isolation.

“Competition is meant to encourage optimism, solidarity, and courage,” the supporters expressed. “The capital punishment of a winner for his beliefs is a clear violation on these principles and a admonition to every athlete who dares to express dissent.

Record of Putting to Death Athletes

The statement said that Vafaei Sani’s circumstances was part of a pattern and emphasized the nation's record of executing athletes for their convictions, including Habib Khabiri, captain of the football side, and Fourouzan Abdi, skipper of the national women’s volleyball team. In two thousand twenty, an athlete, a young Iranian sports titleholder, was also executed.

Additional endorsers to the appeal comprise a sailing champion, who skippered the first female-only team in a round-the-world competition and was the first woman to be awarded a renowned nautical honor; the ex- skipper of the soccer side an athlete; and a footballer, who was in the country's selection for the 1978 World Cup.

Detention and Unfair Trial

The athlete was arrested in early 2020. The accusations against him included “causing deterioration on Earth through fire-setting and damage of public property”. His ruling has been overturned multiple times but on October 4 it was upheld on the third occasion. His court case was denounced as “grossly unfair” by advocates and bodies.

Appeal to United Nations

The call to halt the athlete's capital punishment follows a earlier statement to the UN high commissioner for freedoms, backed by more than a hundred rights specialists and entities, demanding action to stop the sports figure's death.

Execution Crisis

Based on data, there is an “capital punishment escalation in the country, which has reached horrific dimensions”. In 2023, authorities sentenced at least over 850 people – a nearly half rise on the previous year. The year before, data showed nearly a thousand capital punishments, constituting the peak figure since the year 2015. More than eight hundred people have been put to death so far in 2025.

Activists and dissidents are victims, particularly in the aftermath of the the year 2022 protests. Specialists say the government have used the capital punishment to quell dissent, create apprehension among the citizenry and strengthen their hold on power.