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More than 20 Olympic medallists, trainers and additional world-class competitors have put their names to a statement urging a stop to the death penalty of a champion boxer and trainer, who is on death row in the country.

Growing Global Anger

Amid growing worldwide anger over the nation's escalating use of capital punishment as a tool of suppression, the powerfully expressed letter condemns the government's decision to maintain the death sentence of the boxing champion.

The athlete, 30, from the city in the northern province, was arrested for being involved in countrywide demonstrations in two thousand nineteen and charged of supporting an opposition group. He has endured half a decade in detention, where he has been tortured and confined in isolation.

“Competition is intended to promote optimism, unity, and fortitude,” the signatories stated. “The execution of a winner for his opinions is a direct assault on these values and a admonition to any competitor who ventures to express dissent.

Pattern of Executing Sports Figures

The appeal pointed out that the boxer's situation was part of a pattern and emphasized the nation's record of sentencing to death athletes for their views, such as a national team leader, leader of the football side, and a women's sports leader, skipper of the women's volleyball squad. In the year 2020, an athlete, a young national sports titleholder, was also executed.

Additional supporters to the appeal consist of a sailing champion, who captained the inaugural women's squad in a round-the-world competition and was the first woman to earn a esteemed yachting trophy; the former leader of the national squad an athlete; and a footballer, who was in the national team for the global tournament.

Detention and Unjust Proceedings

The athlete was detained in March 2020. The allegations against him entailed “causing deterioration on Earth through arson and destruction of state assets”. His sentence has been reversed twice but on 4 October it was confirmed on the latest review. His court case was condemned as “highly unjust” by human rights activists and bodies.

Call to United Nations

The urging to halt Vafaei Sani’s capital punishment is subsequent to a previous letter to the UN high commissioner for freedoms, backed by more than a hundred human rights experts and organizations, urging action to prevent the sports figure's capital punishment.

Execution Crisis

As per findings, there is an “death penalty surge in Iran, which has reached alarming dimensions”. In two thousand twenty-three, officials sentenced at least eight hundred fifty-three people – a forty-eight percent increase on 2022. In the prior period, data showed nearly a thousand deaths, constituting the highest number since 2015. In excess of 800 people have been sentenced so far in 2025.

Political prisoners and dissidents are targets, notably in the aftermath of the 2022's uprising. Specialists say the government have utilized the executions to quell protest, instil apprehension among the public and strengthen their control on power.