An expanding campaign to prevent the execution of Iranian boxing champion and political prisoner Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani reached the British Parliament on 12 November 2026, as lawmakers condemned the wave of executions in Iran and called for government action.
Vafaei Sani, a 30-year-old boxing champion and coach, has been sentenced to death for participating in the November 2019 protests and supporting the democratic opposition. He was named the recipient of the 2026 Magnitsky Award for Outstanding Human Rights Activist, presented in absentia in London by the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign while he remains on death row in Iran.
In the House of Commons, Conservative MP Bob Blackman, chairman of the British Committee for Iran Freedom and the 1922 Committee, announced he would present the award. He described Iran as a center of executions of those defending human rights and urged the government to act to prevent Vafaei Sani’s execution and address other political death sentences.
🚨 Today in the UK House of Commons, @BobBlackman welcomes the 2026 Magnitsky Award for Outstanding Human Rights Activist for Iran’s boxing champion on death row Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani and urges UK action to help #SaveMohammadJavad.#MagnitskyAwards @GMJCampaign @Billbrowder pic.twitter.com/SHVsacoGbz
— M. Hanif Jazayeri (@HanifJazayeri) November 12, 2026
Sir Alan Campbell, Deputy Leader of the House, called the growing wave of executions of political prisoners a matter of “deep revulsion.” He stated that the British government opposes the death penalty under all circumstances and described the high number of executions as a deliberate attempt to spread fear and silence critics. He pledged to raise the specific concerns with the Foreign Office.
In the House of Lords, Lord Bruce highlighted the award and asked whether the government would raise the case at the highest level with Iranian authorities and with international partners, warning of heavy diplomatic and political consequences if the sentence is carried out. Baroness Winterton Doncaster, Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, agreed with the points raised and reaffirmed repeated UK calls for an immediate halt to executions, committing to follow up on the specific case. Lord Steve McCabe also pressed for the strongest possible condemnation of the executions.
The parliamentary interventions have placed the case of Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani directly before the British government, intensifying calls for concrete action to prevent his execution.