Iran death-row boxer Vafaei Sani wins Magnitsky prize, vows never to surrender

Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani took the Magnitsky award for outstanding human rights activist at a ceremony in London on Thursday night — not from the stage, but in a written message smuggled out of Vakilabad prison in north-eastern Iran. The boxing champion and coach said he accepted it in the name of everyone jailed, tortured, threatened or sentenced to death for the “crime” of wanting a free Iran. “We will never surrender; we will never submit to humiliation,” he wrote, describing a regime that demands televised confessions and repentance.

The 31-year-old was arrested in 2020 over his part in nationwide democracy protests a year earlier and accused of supporting the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, or MEK. Amnesty International says he was convicted of “corruption on Earth” after a grossly unfair trial and handed a death sentence for a third time in September 2024; Iran's supreme court upheld it on 4 October 2025. Since his arrest he has been tortured and held in solitary confinement for long stretches.

Sir William Browder, who chairs the awards committee and heads the Magnitsky Justice Foundation, said Vafaei Sani's case stands for the many Iranians facing execution for defying the state. “Most important, Mohammad Javad is still alive,” Browder said. “That is why this award matters. Every time the world pays attention, it becomes harder to kill him quietly.” The awards are named for Sergei Magnitsky, the Russian lawyer who died in police custody after exposing government corruption, and have run since 2015.

The numbers around him keep climbing. According to the Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights, at least 710 people have been executed in Iran since the start of 2026, among them 79 political and religious prisoners. An October report by the group documented at least 106 death sentences against people detained in January protests, 35 of whom had already been executed. In Vakilabad prison itself, five people tied to the protests have been executed and 15 more are facing death sentences.

Zohreh Abdollahkhani, founder of Human Rights for Sport, said seven Iranian athletes are currently at risk of execution, Vafaei Sani among them. Mountaineer Ali-Sina Mostafavi was executed on 14 October after the anti-government protests, following the killing of taekwondo athlete Siavash Jamshidi Kheirabadi earlier that month and the hanging of MMA fighter Gholamreza Khani Shakarab in May. Abdollahkhani said even Iranians who reject Vafaei Sani's politics are rallying behind him. “I find it very inspiring that different political groups are coming together to say no to execution,” she said.

In his message, Vafaei Sani sketched the country he wants: a free and democratic Iran where people vote freely, women and men are equal, and no one faces discrimination over ethnicity, religion or belief. “I remain steadfast in my pledge, and I will not bow before oppression until the people of Iran are free,” he wrote.