From a Prison Cell, Condemned Iranian Boxer Vafaei Sani Accepts a Human Rights Award and Vows Never to Surrender

In a boxing ring, the fighter who keeps getting up earns the crowd's respect. Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani has been knocked down by Iran's courts three times, and on Thursday night he got up again, this time with a pen.

The 31-year-old boxing champion and coach, who sits on death row in Iran, was given the Magnitsky Award for Outstanding Human Rights Activist at a ceremony in London, The Guardian reported. He could not be there. Instead, he accepted the honor with a written message from Vakilabad prison in northeastern Iran.

The Washington Times had reported ahead of the event that he would not be in London to receive the award from the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign because he remains imprisoned for protesting against his government. OutKick reported that British lawmaker Bob Blackman, chair of the British Committee for Iran Freedom, was listed to present it on his behalf, and the Daily Express also reported the honor.

In his message, Vafaei Sani said he was accepting the award in the name of Iranians who have been jailed, tortured, threatened or condemned for wanting a free country, and of a generation he said is paying for freedom with its lives, according to The Guardian. He wrote that the regime demands repentance, televised confessions and surrender, and he described his hope for a democratic Iran with equal rights for women and men, no discrimination by ethnicity, religion or belief, and no one jailed or executed for political opposition.

"We will never surrender; we will never submit to humiliation," he wrote.

Bill Browder, who heads the Magnitsky Justice Foundation and chairs the awards committee, told The Guardian the most important thing is that the boxer is still alive, adding that each time the world pays attention, it becomes harder for his jailers to put him to death quietly.

Vafaei Sani was arrested in 2020 after taking part in the nationwide protests that swept Iran in November 2019, and authorities accused him of supporting the opposition People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, also known as the MEK, according to OutKick and The Guardian. He was convicted of what Iranian law calls corruption on earth, a charge that carries the death penalty. OutKick, citing IranWire, reported the accusations also included arson and destruction of public property, and rights advocates have called the proceedings unfair.

His case has wound through Iran's courts for years. The country's Supreme Court twice overturned his death sentence before a Revolutionary Court sentenced him to death again in September 2024, and the Supreme Court upheld that ruling on Oct. 4, 2025. The Guardian reported that Amnesty International has called his trial grossly unfair. In December 2025, his lawyer, Babak Paknia, announced a stay of execution, but the stay paused the sentence without overturning the conviction, OutKick reported, citing IranWire.

The award's organizers say he has endured physical and psychological torture, long stretches of solitary confinement and repeated threats of execution.

He has not stood alone. In November 2025, athletes including Martina Navratilova, Riley Gaines, Sharron Davies and Nancy Hogshead signed an appeal calling for international intervention, OutKick reported. Their statement put it plainly: "The world must not stand by while Iran silences its champions".

The World Boxing Council joined the push that same month, urging the United Nations, the International Olympic Committee and other sports bodies to step in, and WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman called on Iranian authorities to reconsider and annul the sentence. Amnesty International listed him among people at risk of execution in a May 2026 urgent action.

The danger is not theoretical. Zohreh Abdollahkhani, founder of the group Human Rights for Sport, told The Guardian that seven athletes, including Vafaei Sani, are at risk of execution in Iran right now. The Guardian reported that a mountaineer, Ali-Sina Mostafavi, was executed on Oct. 14 following anti-government protests, and that a mixed martial arts fighter, Gholamreza Khani Shakarab, was hanged in May. Citing the Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights, the paper reported at least 710 executions in Iran since January, including 79 political and religious prisoners.

None of the reports included a response from Iranian officials.

The Magnitsky Awards began in 2015 and are named for Sergei Magnitsky, the Russian lawyer whose death in custody followed his exposure of a corruption scheme; past honorees named by the organizers include the late Sen. John McCain, journalist Maria Ressa and Boris Nemtsov, according to OutKick.

Americans understand why a story like this matters. We believe our rights to speak, to assemble and to worship come from God, not from any government, and that no state has the authority to kill a man for asking to be free. Toughness is not only measured in rounds. A coach from Mashhad, writing from a prison cell, still refuses to give his jailers the repentance and surrender they demand, and he keeps answering the bell.

The best thing the sports world can do now is what Browder suggested: keep paying attention. Keep his name in the conversation, keep the pressure on the governing bodies that have a voice, and keep Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani in our prayers.