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Over two dozen Olympic medal winners, mentors and additional international athletes have signed a statement calling for a stop to the death penalty of a champion boxer and coach, who is on death row in the country.

Increasing Global Anger

During increasing international outrage over Iran’s escalating use of capital punishment as a tool of repression, the strongly worded appeal condemns the Iranian regime's verdict to confirm the death sentence of Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani.

The boxer, thirty, from Mashhad in the northeastern region, was taken into custody for being involved in nationwide protests in the year 2019 and charged of supporting an dissident organization. He has endured 60 months in detention, where he has been mistreated and confined in solitary confinement.

“Sport is designed to inspire faith, unity, and bravery,” the endorsers expressed. “The death penalty of a champion for his political views is a blatant attack on these principles and a admonition to every athlete who ventures to express dissent.

History of Executing Competitors

The letter noted that Vafaei Sani’s circumstances was not an isolated one and underscored the nation's history of executing sports champions for their views, for example a national team leader, skipper of the national football team, and a volleyball captain, leader of the female volleyball side. In two thousand twenty, a wrestling champion, a 27-year-old Iranian sports titleholder, faced the death penalty.

Other supporters to the letter consist of Tracy Edwards, who skippered the inaugural female-only team in a global yacht race and was the first woman to receive a renowned yachting trophy; the former leader of the soccer side Craig Foster; and a sports figure, who was in the Iranian squad for the international competition.

Arrest and Unjust Proceedings

Vafaei Sani was arrested in the spring of 2020. The allegations against him comprised “spreading corruption on Earth through arson and destruction of state assets”. His ruling has been reversed twice but on the fourth of October it was maintained on the third occasion. His legal proceedings was denounced as “grossly unfair” by advocates and groups.

Call to UN

The call to stop the boxer's death sentence is subsequent to a earlier statement to the UN high commissioner for freedoms, endorsed by more than a hundred human rights experts and organizations, demanding intervention to prevent the athlete’s execution.

Execution Crisis

According to data, there is an “capital punishment escalation in Iran, which has attained alarming levels”. In 2023, authorities sentenced at least eight hundred fifty-three people – a forty-eight percent increase on 2022. Last year, statistics showed nine hundred seventy-two capital punishments, representing the peak figure since the year 2015. In excess of 800 people have been sentenced so far in 2025.

Political prisoners and dissidents are targets, especially in the wake of the the year 2022 uprising. Specialists say the regime have used the capital punishment to stifle opposition, instil fear among the public and reinforce their control on authority.