🔗 Share this article

In excess of 20 Olympic medallists, mentors and further global sports figures have put their names to a letter demanding a stop to the execution of a boxing champion and trainer, who is sentenced to die in the nation.

Increasing International Outrage

Amid growing worldwide anger over the country's expanding employment of executions as a means of oppression, the strongly worded letter denounces the Iranian regime's verdict to maintain the capital punishment of the boxing champion.

The boxer, thirty, from the city in north-east Iran, was detained for taking part in nationwide protests in 2019 and indicted of supporting an dissident organization. He has passed half a decade in incarceration, where he has been mistreated and confined in isolation.

“Sport is intended to encourage hope, solidarity, and courage,” the endorsers stated. “The execution of a winner for his opinions is a blatant attack on these principles and a caution to all sportspeople who dares to voice opinions.

History of Killing Competitors

The statement said that the boxer's circumstances was part of a pattern and emphasized Iran’s record of sentencing to death athletes for their beliefs, including a national team leader, leader of the football side, and a women's sports leader, captain of the national women’s volleyball team. In the year 2020, Navid Afkari, a young Iranian sports titleholder, faced the death penalty.

Other endorsers to the statement consist of Tracy Edwards, who led the first all-female crew in a global yacht race and was the pioneering lady to receive a esteemed yachting trophy; the former skipper of the soccer side Craig Foster; and a footballer, who was in the national team for the 1978 World Cup.

Apprehension and Flawed Legal Process

Vafaei Sani was taken into custody in the spring of 2020. The charges against him comprised “causing deterioration on Earth through fire-setting and damage of public property”. His sentence has been reversed on two occasions but on October 4 it was maintained on the third occasion. His trial was denounced as “highly unjust” by human rights activists and groups.

Call to United Nations

The call to stop the boxer's execution follows a 2023 statement to the global human rights chief for freedoms, endorsed by more than a hundred advocates and groups, demanding intervention to avert the athlete’s capital punishment.

Death Penalty Surge

As per findings, there is an “capital punishment escalation in the nation, which has attained shocking levels”. In 2023, authorities executed at least over 850 people – a forty-eight percent increase on the previous year. Last year, data showed nearly a thousand deaths, marking the maximum count since 2015. In excess of 800 people have been executed so far in 2025.

Activists and dissidents are victims, especially in the aftermath of the 2022's uprising. Experts say the government have employed the capital punishment to suppress protest, generate fear among the population and reinforce their hold on authority.