🔗 Share this article

Over two dozen Olympic medal winners, coaches and other world-class competitors have signed a letter urging a end to the execution of a boxing champion and instructor, who is on death row in Iran.

Increasing International Outrage

Amidst increasing global condemnation over the nation's expanding employment of capital punishment as a instrument of repression, the strongly worded statement condemns the government's decision to uphold the capital punishment of the athlete.

The boxer, thirty, from the city in the northern province, was detained for being involved in national uprisings in two thousand nineteen and charged of supporting an resistance movement. He has endured five years in incarceration, where he has been mistreated and kept in solitary confinement.

“Athletics is meant to promote hope, solidarity, and bravery,” the supporters expressed. “The death penalty of a winner for his beliefs is a direct assault on these principles and a admonition to any competitor who attempts to voice opinions.

History of Executing Athletes

The letter said that the boxer's situation was not an isolated one and underscored the country's record of sentencing to death sports champions for their views, for example a national team leader, skipper of the football side, and a women's sports leader, skipper of the female volleyball side. In 2020, an athlete, a 27-year-old national competitor, was also executed.

Other supporters to the letter comprise a yachting pioneer, who captained the first all-female crew in a international sailing event and was the first woman to receive a prestigious yachting trophy; the former skipper of the national squad a sports advocate; and a sports figure, who was in the national team for the international competition.

Detention and Unjust Proceedings

The boxer was taken into custody in the spring of 2020. The charges against him comprised “promoting decay on Earth through fire-setting and ruin of state assets”. His verdict has been reversed twice but on the fourth of October it was upheld on the latest review. His legal proceedings was criticized as “deeply biased” by human rights activists and bodies.

Call to International Body

The appeal to stop the boxer's capital punishment follows a earlier letter to the global human rights chief for rights, signed by more than one hundred rights specialists and entities, demanding measures to prevent the competitor's capital punishment.

Death Penalty Surge

As per reports, there is an “execution crisis in the nation, which has reached shocking dimensions”. In 2023, officials put to death at least over 850 people – a forty-eight percent rise on 2022. The year before, records showed nearly a thousand executions, representing the highest number since 2015. More than hundreds of people have been sentenced so far in the current year.

Political prisoners and protesters are focus, particularly in the aftermath of the the year 2022 demonstrations. Experts say the regime have used the capital punishment to quell dissent, generate anxiety among the population and strengthen their grip on power.