UN Rights Chief Urged to Help Prevent Execution of Iranian Boxer

Nearly 100 current and former United Nations officials, human rights and legal experts and Nobel laureates have signed a letter urging the UN Human Rights chief to intervene to prevent the execution of a boxer in Iran.

Mohammad Javad Vafa'i Sani, a 27-year-old local boxing champion in the north-eastern city of Mashhad, was arrested for taking part in nationwide unrest in November 2019. He was informed on July 19 that his execution verdict had been finalized, according to the letter.

The boxer’s lawyer, Babak Paknia, said in a tweet that the judiciary had not notified them about the verdict of the Revolutionary Court in Mashhad. He also said that the ruling can be appealed before the Supreme Court within 20 days. 

"We ask that you make an urgent public call for the Iranian authorities to halt [Vafa'i Sani’s] imminent execution sentence," said the letter, signed by 96 people including the former head of the International Criminal Court Judge Sang-Hyun Song, more than a dozen current and former UN human rights officials as well as former prosecutors.

The boxer “was then summoned and taken by a prison guard to an unknown location,” it added. “There is no further information about his current whereabouts.”

According to the letter, Vafa'i Sani is a supporter of the opposition group People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK).

He was arrested in March 2020 and “tortured for several months and eventually handed down an execution sentence” for “corruption on Earth.”

A spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said: "We have received information on this case and are following up on it and gathering additional information."

Thousands of Iranians took to the streets of more than 100 cities and towns in November 2019 to protest the government's decision to raise gas prices. The protests quickly turned political, with many chanting against the Islamic regime and its leaders.

Human rights groups have confirmed the death of more than 300 people, including children, in the unrest, but the Reuters news agency reported that the actual number of people killed was around 1,500.

Human rights activists have raised alarm over the Iranian authorities’ dramatic escalation of executions in recent months, following last year’s nationwide protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September while in police custody.

“In recent months, the Iranian authorities have executed at least seven other protesters on similar bogus charges with total impunity,” the letter reads. “These political executions are a callous attempt by the authorities to frighten and silence an increasingly restive population no longer willing to accept their corrupt and oppressive rule.”