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Over twenty Olympic champions, coaches and other international athletes have endorsed a appeal demanding a stop to the capital punishment of a boxing titleholder and instructor, who is on death row in Iran.

Growing International Outrage

Amidst growing global condemnation over Iran’s expanding employment of capital punishment as a instrument of suppression, the forcefully phrased statement censures the authorities's decision to uphold the death sentence of the athlete.

The athlete, 30, from Mashhad in north-east Iran, was taken into custody for participating in nationwide protests in the year 2019 and charged of supporting an dissident organization. He has passed half a decade in detention, where he has been tortured and kept in seclusion.

“Sport is designed to promote hope, unity, and fortitude,” the signatories wrote. “The execution of a titleholder for his beliefs is a clear violation on these principles and a warning to any competitor who dares to express dissent.

History of Executing Sports Figures

The statement said that Vafaei Sani’s case was not an isolated one and emphasized the country's record of sentencing to death competitors for their beliefs, such as a football captain, skipper of the football side, and a volleyball captain, skipper of the women's volleyball squad. In the year 2020, Navid Afkari, a young Iranian competitor, faced the death penalty.

Additional supporters to the statement comprise a yachting pioneer, who skippered the first women's squad in a round-the-world competition and was the initial female to be awarded a prestigious nautical honor; the former captain of the soccer side an athlete; and a sports figure, who was in the Iranian squad for the 1978 World Cup.

Detention and Flawed Legal Process

The athlete was arrested in the spring of 2020. The allegations against him entailed “spreading corruption on Earth through arson and destruction of state assets”. His sentence has been overturned on two occasions but on 4 October it was upheld on the latest review. His trial was denounced as “highly unjust” by rights defenders and groups.

Appeal to United Nations

The call to stop the athlete's capital punishment comes after a 2023 statement to the global human rights chief for freedoms, signed by over 100 advocates and entities, demanding measures to stop the athlete’s execution.

Death Penalty Surge

According to reports, there is an “death penalty surge in the country, which has attained shocking proportions”. In 2023, the government sentenced at least over 850 people – a forty-eight percent increase on 2022. In the prior period, records showed nine hundred seventy-two capital punishments, constituting the highest number since 2015. More than eight hundred people have been executed so far in 2025.

Activists and protesters are targets, especially in the wake of the 2022 uprising. Analysts say the government have used the capital punishment to suppress opposition, generate apprehension among the citizenry and strengthen their hold on rule.