An Iranian boxing champion and political prisoner facing a triple death sentence has declared that he will never surrender to state oppression. Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani received the Magnitsky award for outstanding human rights activist during a ceremony in London on Thursday.
Authorities arrested the 31-year-old athlete in 2020 after nationwide democracy demonstrations the previous year. He faced accusations of supporting an opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran.
Amnesty International reported that a court convicted him of corruption on Earth and handed down a third death sentence following a grossly unfair trial in September 2024. The supreme court upheld that ruling on 4 October 2025. Human rights groups report that he has endured torture and prolonged solitary confinement since his arrest.
Vafaei Sani sent a written message from Vakilabad prison in north-eastern Iran to be read at the ceremony. He accepted the honour on behalf of comrades in resistance units and a generation paying the price for freedom with their lives.
The regime demands repentance, televised confessions and surrender from prisoners, Vafaei Sani wrote in his message. He stated that their answer remains clear that they will never submit to humiliation.
Sir William Browder, head of the Magnitsky Justice Foundation and chair of the awards committee, spoke about the recognition. He said that Vafaei Sani represents the plight of numerous Iranians facing execution for opposing the government.
Browder noted that the prisoner is still alive and that international attention makes quiet executions harder. The Magnitsky awards began in 2015 to honour journalists, politicians and activists, taking their name from Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who died in police custody after exposing government corruption.
Vafaei Sani is one of seven Iranian athletes currently at risk of execution. Zohreh Abdollahkhani, founder of Human Rights for Sport, described the situation as dire for imprisoned athletes who serve as country role models.
Other athletes have already faced execution following anti-government demonstrations. Authorities hanged mountaineer Ali-Sina Mostafavi on 14 October, following the earlier killings of taekwondo athlete Siavash Jamshidi Kheirabadi and mixed martial arts fighter Gholamreza Khani Shakarab.
According to the Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights, at least 710 people have faced execution in Iran since the beginning of 2026. This figure includes 79 political and religious prisoners, alongside death sentences and executions tied to protest detainees in Vakilabad prison and across the country.
Abdollahkhani stated that citizens have celebrated the award regardless of differing political views to ensure his voice is heard. Vafaei Sani concluded his message by reaffirming his vision for a democratic Iran with equal rights and no political imprisonments, vowing not to bow before oppression until the nation is free.
