Iranian boxer Mohammad Javad Vafaei-Sani is at imminent risk of execution after his retrial request was rejected, sparking international condemnation from athletes and rights groups.
PARIS: Iranian boxer Mohammad Javad Vafaei-Sani is at imminent risk of execution.
His request for a retrial was rejected by Iran’s Supreme Court this week.
The 30-year-old national boxing silver medallist was arrested in 2020 over involvement in 2019 protests.
He was charged with membership of the outlawed People’s Mujahedin (MEK) organisation.
He was subsequently sentenced to death after being convicted of “corruption on earth”.
His case has now been sent to the office for implementation of sentences.
His mother was unexpectedly granted a visit to him in Vakilabad prison in Mashhad.
Such visits are common in Iran on the eve of an execution.
“The meeting with his mother could signal his imminent execution,” said the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the MEK’s political arm.
The group stated his life is now in grave danger.
MEK spokesman Shahin Ghobadi told AFP that authorities “had, using extensive torture, tried hard to force him to renounce” his support.
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam of Iran Human Rights said the boxer had been “tortured to extract forced confessions”.
The World Boxing Council and sporting figures have called for his life to be spared.
Over 20 athletes, including Martina Navratilova and Sharron Davies, signed a statement urging global action.
World Boxing Council president Mauricio Sulaiman Saldivar said the execution would be an attack on the “fundamental values of sport and human dignity”.
Activists report a major crackdown and surge in executions in Iran.
According to Iran Human Rights, at least 1,426 people were hanged in Iran up to the end of November this year.
