Athletes Executed During Ebrahim Raisi's Judicial Tenure

During Ebrahim Raisi's judicial responsibilities in the 1980s and 1990s, several prominent Iranian athletes were executed. The most controversial execution during Raisi's presidency of the judiciary was that of Navid Afkari in Shiraz prison, which received global attention and prompted reactions from many well-known athletes worldwide. He was a wrestler who had made it to the national youth team but was executed in September 2020 on charges of murdering a security officer present at protests in Shiraz, with a ruling that legal experts criticized for numerous flaws. His brothers, Vahid and Habib, also endured flogging and spent a long time in solitary confinement. They reported being subjected to severe torture to extract confessions during their detention. Navid Afkari's mother stated in a message that her sons were tortured to testify against each other, and one of them committed suicide under physical and psychological pressure in prison. Hassan Younesi, son of a former Minister of Intelligence, represented Navid and tweeted about the condemned's right to meet with his family before execution, saying, 'You were so eager that you deprived Navid of his last visit.' Mostafa Tajzadeh, the political deputy of the Ministry of Interior during Khatami's government, wrote a letter to Ebrahim Raisi, listing flaws in the case and stating, 'One witness recanted their testimony. Another witness said they saw Navid for the first time in court. There were issues in the forensic report as well. The retribution regulations consider conditions that, without them, retribution is void.' Tajzadeh also called for 'the immediate establishment of a special and impartial team' to review the investigation and ruling process. Abdollah Naseri, former CEO of the state news agency IRNA, wrote to Raisi, 'The case of the oppressed young man Navid Afkari became the world's top news. His hasty retribution is akin to the executions of 1988, of which you were one of the perpetrators, and it again became a turning point in the legal actions of the government.' Naseri also urged Raisi to 'apologize as the executor of this injustice and take personal responsibility for the prosecution of the perpetrators.' Despite all these circumstances and the flood of domestic and international protests and requests before and after Navid Afkari's execution, this issue was met with complete indifference from Ebrahim Raisi in his role as head of the judiciary. After Raisi's death in a helicopter crash on May 30, Saeed Afkari said, 'I haven't seen my mother this happy in years.' He wrote on the social media platform X, 'After Navid's murder, Raisi's representatives came to Adilabad. They told Vahid either come on TV and say I am guilty, or we will execute Habib in front of you first, then you.' Ebrahim Raisi had executed other prominent athletes three decades before his presidency of the judiciary. In the summer of 1988, as Deputy Prosecutor General of Tehran, he was a member of the five-person committee of Ruhollah Khomeini, known as the Death Committee, which executed thousands of political prisoners without due process. Forouzan Abdi, captain of the women's national volleyball team, was sentenced to five years in prison in 1981, but despite her prison term ending, her release was prevented, and she was hanged in Evin prison in August 1988. Mahshid (Hossein) Razaghi, a member of the Homa football team, was also executed in August 1988 in Gohardasht prison. Those executed in the summer of 1988 were buried in mass graves without identification. Zainal Abedin Kazemi, a well-known wrestler from Langarud, was another athlete killed in September 1988 by the ruling of the Death Committee, of which Ebrahim Raisi was also a member.