🔗 Share this article

Over twenty Olympic medal winners, trainers and further global sports figures have put their names to a statement calling for a end to the capital punishment of a champion boxer and coach, who is on death row in Iran.

Increasing International Outrage

Amid rising global condemnation over the country's expanding employment of capital punishment as a means of oppression, the strongly worded letter condemns the authorities's ruling to uphold the execution order of the athlete.

Vafaei Sani, thirty, from Mashhad in the northeastern region, was detained for being involved in countrywide demonstrations in two thousand nineteen and accused of aiding an opposition group. He has spent half a decade in prison, where he has been tortured and kept in solitary confinement.

“Competition is designed to encourage faith, solidarity, and courage,” the supporters wrote. “The execution of a champion for his beliefs is a clear violation on these ideals and a admonition to all sportspeople who dares to voice opinions.

Pattern of Putting to Death Competitors

The statement said that Vafaei Sani’s circumstances was not an isolated one and highlighted the nation's past of putting to death competitors for their beliefs, for example Habib Khabiri, captain of the football side, and a volleyball captain, leader of the women's volleyball squad. In the year 2020, a wrestling champion, a 27-year-old national sports titleholder, was put to death.

Other signatories to the letter comprise a sailing champion, who captained the pioneering female-only team in a round-the-world competition and was the pioneering lady to be awarded a prestigious yachting trophy; the previous skipper of the Australian football team Craig Foster; and Bahram Mavaddat, who was in the Iranian squad for the global tournament.

Detention and Unjust Proceedings

The boxer was arrested in early 2020. The accusations against him entailed “causing deterioration on Earth through arson and ruin of government belongings”. His verdict has been annulled multiple times but on 4 October it was confirmed on the third occasion. His trial was denounced as “deeply biased” by advocates and groups.

Appeal to United Nations

The call to prevent the athlete's execution is subsequent to a 2023 appeal to the United Nations official for human rights, backed by in excess of one hundred rights specialists and entities, urging measures to avert the competitor's capital punishment.

Death Penalty Surge

As per data, there is an “capital punishment escalation in Iran, which has achieved alarming dimensions”. In 2023, authorities executed at least eight hundred fifty-three people – a forty-eight percent surge on the previous year. In the prior period, statistics showed nearly a thousand capital punishments, marking the maximum count since the year 2015. In excess of 800 people have been sentenced so far in 2025.

Activists and dissidents are victims, notably in the aftermath of the 2022's demonstrations. Analysts say the Iranian authorities have used the capital punishment to quell opposition, generate apprehension among the citizenry and reinforce their grip on rule.