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More than 20 Olympic champions, coaches and additional global sports figures have signed a appeal demanding a end to the capital punishment of a boxing champion and trainer, who is facing execution in Iran.

Growing Worldwide Condemnation

Amid rising international outrage over the nation's escalating use of executions as a means of repression, the forcefully phrased appeal censures the government's verdict to confirm the capital punishment of Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani.

Vafaei Sani, thirty, from Mashhad in the northern province, was arrested for participating in nationwide protests in two thousand nineteen and indicted of supporting an opposition group. He has passed five years in incarceration, where he has been abused and kept in seclusion.

“Sport is intended to inspire faith, unity, and courage,” the signatories wrote. “The death penalty of a champion for his opinions is a direct assault on these principles and a caution to all sportspeople who dares to express dissent.

Record of Killing Sports Figures

The statement said that Vafaei Sani’s case was part of a pattern and underscored the country's past of sentencing to death sports champions for their views, including a football captain, captain of the soccer squad, and Fourouzan Abdi, leader of the women's volleyball squad. In the year 2020, an athlete, a 27-year-old national wrestling champion, was put to death.

Further endorsers to the statement consist of a sailing champion, who skippered the first all-female crew in a international sailing event and was the pioneering lady to earn a prestigious yachting trophy; the ex- skipper of the Australian football team Craig Foster; and a sports figure, who was in the country's selection for the international competition.

Detention and Unfair Trial

The boxer was arrested in March 2020. The allegations against him comprised “promoting decay on Earth through incendiarism and ruin of government belongings”. His sentence has been annulled on two occasions but on 4 October it was upheld on the latest review. His legal proceedings was denounced as “highly unjust” by human rights activists and groups.

Call to UN

The call to prevent the boxer's execution is subsequent to a earlier letter to the UN high commissioner for freedoms, signed by more than 100 rights specialists and entities, urging measures to prevent the sports figure's death.

Execution Crisis

According to findings, there is an “capital punishment escalation in Iran, which has attained shocking proportions”. In the year 2023, officials put to death at least 853 people – a 48% rise on 2022. The year before, records showed nine hundred seventy-two capital punishments, marking the highest number since two thousand fifteen. More than eight hundred people have been put to death so far in the current year.

Activists and protesters are targets, particularly in the aftermath of the 2022 demonstrations. Specialists say the government have used the capital punishment to stifle protest, generate apprehension among the citizenry and strengthen their hold on rule.