🔗 Share this article

More than twenty Olympic champions, mentors and additional global sports figures have signed a letter urging a stop to the capital punishment of a boxing champion and trainer, who is on death row in the country.

Increasing International Outrage

Amid growing global condemnation over Iran’s expanding employment of capital punishment as a means of oppression, the powerfully expressed statement condemns the government's ruling to maintain 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 two thousand nineteen and indicted of aiding an resistance movement. He has passed 60 months in detention, where he has been abused and held in isolation.

“Sport is intended to inspire optimism, solidarity, and courage,” the signatories wrote. “The execution of a champion for his opinions is a blatant attack on these principles and a admonition to every athlete who ventures to speak out.

History of Putting to Death Athletes

The statement said that the athlete's circumstances was not unique and highlighted the country's history of sentencing to death athletes for their beliefs, for example a football captain, leader of the national football team, and a volleyball captain, captain of the women's volleyball squad. In 2020, an athlete, a young Iranian competitor, faced the death penalty.

Additional signatories to the statement comprise a yachting pioneer, who skippered the pioneering women's squad in a round-the-world competition and was the initial female to be awarded a renowned sailing award; the previous captain of the national squad Craig Foster; and a sports figure, who was in the country's selection for the global tournament.

Arrest and Unjust Proceedings

The athlete was arrested in the spring of 2020. The accusations against him entailed “spreading corruption on Earth through incendiarism and destruction of government belongings”. His ruling has been reversed twice but on October 4 it was confirmed on the third occasion. His legal proceedings was denounced as “highly unjust” by human rights activists and organizations.

Call to United Nations

The urging to stop Vafaei Sani’s death sentence comes after a 2023 appeal to the United Nations official for rights, backed by more than 100 human rights experts and organizations, calling for intervention to stop the athlete’s capital punishment.

Execution Crisis

As per findings, there is an “death penalty surge in Iran, which has attained horrific proportions”. In two thousand twenty-three, the government sentenced at least 853 people – a forty-eight percent surge on 2022. The year before, statistics showed nine hundred seventy-two executions, constituting the highest number since 2015. In excess of eight hundred people have been sentenced so far in 2025.

Political prisoners and protesters are targets, notably in the wake of the 2022 protests. Specialists say the government have used the death penalty to quell dissent, instil anxiety among the population and reinforce their control on power.