Iranian boxer Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani will not be in London on Thursday to accept his Outstanding Human Rights Activist Award from the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign. He remains on death row in his home country for protesting the government.
The ceremony will go on without the 30-year-old, who has been sentenced to death three times since his arrest after the November 2019 protests targeting the Iranian government. The sentence was overturned twice before the nation’s Supreme Court upheld it in 2025.
Appeals from boxers, human rights advocates and his family have had no impact on the repressive, hard-line regime in Tehran, which has ramped up executions of its own citizens in recent months.
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“His life is in immediate danger,” Vafaei Sani’s family told the Iran Human Rights Monitor in December. “We have no information about him.”
Vafaei Sani was a boxer and coach in Mashhad, Iran. Born to an impoverished family, he became a top national fighter before attracting global attention for his activities outside the ring.
In 2017, he joined protests against the government, then led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He protested again in 2019, leading to his arrest in early 2020.
Human rights officials claimed that the boxer was subjected to solitary confinement, torture, sleep deprivation and threats to his family. In May, Amnesty International issued an urgent action highlighting Vafaei Sani as one of several Iranian protesters and dissidents at imminent risk of execution.
His family lost regular contact with him years ago. Iranian courts reissued his death sentence multiple times. Officials cited “corruption on Earth” as the primary reason for the sentence, claiming arson and destruction of government property.
They also noted that the boxer was openly affiliated with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, the largest anti-government group in the nation.
The Iranian government has not disclosed an execution date, but the regime is under enormous stress after more than eight months of attacks by American and Israeli forces and an ongoing blockade of the nation’s ports enforced by the U.S. Navy.
More than 30 people were executed over three days in late October, according to international watchdog groups.
“We feel he could be executed at any minute,” said Mohammad Hanif Jazayeri, director of the Justice for the Victims of the 1988 Massacre in Iran group. “In Iran, these executions aren’t meant to provide justice. Whenever the regime needs to quell opposition, execution is used as an example for others.”
Mr. Jazayeri said prisoners are sometimes left in custody for decades, with executions scheduled after an uprising or protest.
In the years since his arrest, the boxing world has rallied behind Vafaei Sani.
“Sport is meant to inspire hope, unity and courage,” Vitali Klitschko, a former boxer and the mayor of Kyiv, Ukraine, wrote in a letter of support. “The execution of a champion for his political views is a direct assault on these values and a warning to every athlete who dares to speak out.”
“Sport must never be used as an instrument to intimidate or suppress human beings. Its true purpose is to uplift, to inspire, and to create space for fairness, courage and humanity,” Olympic gold medalist Henry Maske wrote in a similar letter, which called on the United Nations to intervene.
The activism has not led to Vafaei Sani’s release, though. He remains imprisoned.
The boxer is not the first Iranian athlete subjected to similar treatment for speaking out against Iran. The state executed former wrestling champion Navid Afkari in 2020 for participating in protests. Habib Khabiri and Forouzan Abdi — members of the Iranian soccer and women’s volleyball squads, respectively — were both executed in the 1980s for perceived anti-government sentiments.
“These national icons are considered threats because they can galvanize the population even more,” Mr. Jazayeri said. “[Vafaei Sani] is an icon, someone looked up to by the country at large.”
That same status also makes him a valuable weapon for the Iranian regime. If Vafaei Sani flips to support the Iranian regime, it could help squash dissidents. The boxer has still not renounced his support for the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran.
“That’s why they’ve tried to break him,” Mr. Jazayeri said. “His will has proven stronger than his physique. The only option for the regime is to execute him to demoralize the country.
Yet time could be running out. A media outlet — the Fars News Agency — associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps recently published an article openly calling for mass executions of prisoners. Vafaei Sani, as an athlete, could be one of the most prominent targets.
Activists and politicians will gather in London to honor Vafaei Sani and other human rights pioneers with a buttoned-up ceremony. Bob Blackman, chairman of the influential 1922 Committee and chair of the British Committee for Iran Freedom, will introduce Vafaei Sani as the winner of the 2026 Magnitsky Human Rights Award for Outstanding Human Rights Activist.
The awards are named for Sergei Magnitsky, a tax adviser and auditor who died in Russian custody after exposing governmental corruption in 2009. The U.S. Magnitsky Act, originally passed in 2012, targeted Russian officials implicated in Magnitsky’s death and Russian human rights abuses. The Global Magnitsky Act, passed in 2016, expanded those sanctions to foreign officials implicated in human rights violations worldwide.
Vafaei Sani will remain imprisoned under conditions that human rights advocates describe as torturous. The honor, nevertheless, matters to the martial artist and other political prisoners in Iran.
“This award means that the human rights community is paying attention to the crisis unfolding in Iran,” Mr. Jazayeri said. “It should serve as a message to governments around the world that they too should pay attention, not close their eyes.”
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