Over two dozen Olympic champions, trainers and other world-class competitors have signed a appeal demanding a stop to the death penalty of a boxing titleholder and instructor, who is facing execution in the nation.
During increasing global condemnation over the nation's expanding employment of the death penalty as a tool of repression, the powerfully expressed appeal censures the Iranian regime's decision to maintain the death sentence of Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani.
Vafaei Sani, 30, from Mashhad in the northeastern region, was arrested for being involved in nationwide protests in two thousand nineteen and indicted of backing an opposition group. He has spent five years in detention, where he has been tortured and kept in solitary confinement.
“Sport is intended to encourage faith, unity, and courage,” the signatories stated. “The capital punishment of a titleholder for his beliefs is a blatant attack on these values and a admonition to any competitor who attempts to voice opinions.
The appeal said that Vafaei Sani’s situation was not an isolated one and underscored the country's history of sentencing to death athletes for their beliefs, for example Habib Khabiri, skipper of the football side, and a women's sports leader, leader of the female volleyball side. In two thousand twenty, an athlete, a 27-year national competitor, faced the death penalty.
Further endorsers to the letter consist of Tracy Edwards, who skippered the inaugural all-female crew in a global yacht race and was the first woman to be awarded a esteemed sailing award; the former captain of the soccer side Craig Foster; and a sports figure, who was in the Iranian squad for the global tournament.
The boxer was arrested in March 2020. The charges against him included “spreading corruption on Earth through incendiarism and ruin of government belongings”. His sentence has been reversed multiple times but on the fourth of October it was upheld on the latest review. His court case was denounced as “grossly unfair” by rights defenders and bodies.
The urging to halt the athlete's capital punishment is subsequent to a previous statement to the UN high commissioner for freedoms, signed by more than one hundred advocates and organizations, calling for action to stop the athlete’s execution.
Based on findings, there is an “capital punishment escalation in the nation, which has achieved shocking levels”. In the year 2023, authorities sentenced at least eight hundred fifty-three people – a forty-eight percent rise on 2022. In the prior period, data showed 972 capital punishments, constituting the highest number since 2015. In excess of hundreds of people have been put to death so far in 2025.
Activists and opponents are victims, especially in the wake of the 2022's protests. Analysts say the government have utilized the death penalty to quell protest, instil apprehension among the citizenry and tighten their hold on rule.
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