Jailed Iranian boxer on death row receives Magnitsky human rights award in London

Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani, an Iranian boxing champion and coach who is held on death row as a political prisoner, has received the Magnitsky award for outstanding human rights activist at a ceremony in London, The Guardian reported.

Vafaei Sani, 31, was arrested in 2020 for taking part in nationwide democracy protests in Iran in 2019. He was accused of supporting the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, known as the MEK. He has been sentenced to death three times.

In September 2024 he was convicted of "corruption on Earth" and sentenced to death for a third time. Iran's supreme court, the country's highest court of appeal, upheld that death sentence on 4 October 2025.

The Magnitsky awards began in 2015 to recognise journalists, politicians and activists working on human rights. They are named after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer.

In a written message from Vakilabad prison, Vafaei Sani said: "We will never surrender; we will never submit to humiliation."