Iranian athletes at Tokyo Olympics remember murdered wrestler Navid Afkari

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Jerusalem – An ancient sport, wrestling has long electrified Iran and the United States. Yet in 2020, the Islamic Republic executed the decorated Greco-Roman wrestler Navid Afkari for his role in a 2018 protest against corruption in the theocratic state.

The contrast between the world’s worst state-sponsor of terrorism, according to the U.S. State Department, and the dissident Iranian athletes who honored Afkari in Tokyo could not be greater.

On the one hand, in a video posted by Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad on Twitter, Vahid Sarlak, who defected from the Islamic Republic and now coaches Tajikistan’s national judo team, said from Tokyo, "I wanted to do a small gesture for an Iranian champion. This champion’s rights were violated in Iran. He should have been here now. 

"But he is not among us. RIP Navid Afkari. I want to fly this in memory of Navid Afkari in the Olympic Village. So that his soul lives among us forever. In the name of the United for Navid campaign, we’re always thinking of Navid," he continued.

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As Sarlak spoke, he displayed a picture of Afkari attached to a flag and added, "Wherever in the world we are, Navid is always alive for us. We’ll always commemorate him. I am flying this flag in his memory."

Sarlak, who was a member of Iran’s national judo team and has criticized the regime for prohibiting its athletes to compete against Israelis, is part of the United for Navid campaign that was founded by Alinejad. 

On the other end of the spectrum, Iran’s regime recently celebrated the Olympic gold medal awarded to a member of the U.S.-designated terrorist organization the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Javad Foroughi, a 41-year-old IRGC member, won a gold medal as a marksman on July 24. Foroughi claims he served as a nurse for the IRGC in Syria between 2013 and 2015. He delivered a military salute from the Olympic podium.

United for Navid said in a statement that presenting a gold medal to Foroughi is "not only a catastrophe for Iranian sports but also for the international community, and especially the reputation of the IOC [International Olympic Committee]."

The NGO added, "The IRGC has a history of violence and killing, not only of Iranian people and protesters there, but also innocent people in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon."

Korean shooter Jin Jong-oh, a six-time Olympic medalist, slammed the IOC for awarding Foroughi, declaring it to be "pure nonsense," The Korea Times reported. He asked: "How can a terrorist win first place [at the Olympics]?" adding, "That’s the most absurd and ridiculous thing."

The Olympics praised Foroughi’s victory on its Twitter feed, sparking outrage among Iranians and human rights activists.

United for Navid sent a letter to the IOC’s Ethics Commission, demanding the organization initiate a formal investigation into Foroughi’s role as an IRGC member.

The IOC wrote in an email that the IRGC is the same as the armed forces of other countries. According to the U.S. government, the IRGC and its proxies have murdered over 600 American military personnel in the Middle East. 

When asked about the IOC’s handling of Afkari’s case, Rob Koehler, director general of Global Athlete − The Movement for Positive Progress in Sport, told Fox News, "The IOC’s inaction on athlete abuse continues to send a clear message to athletes worldwide that their health and safety are secondary to the implementation of the Games and the preservation of a ‘global unity’ marketing strategy."

Koehler, who seeks to advance the human rights of athletes, said, "Time and time again we are seeing examples of the IOC’s failure to prioritize athlete rights and human rights; the IOC’s inaction against the Iran Olympic Committee has resulted in continued athlete abuse."

The IOC faced intense criticism for failing to sanction Iran’s regime after it executed Afkari in September 2020, in what Western governments and human rights organizations said was an extrajudicial killing of an innocent man. The U.S. government immediately sanctioned the judicial and prison officials who carried out Afkari’s execution.

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Iran’s rulers claimed Afkari killed a security guard who was tracking protesters during the 2018 demonstration. 

Then-President Trump helped breathe significant life into the campaign to save Afkari by tweeting a Fox News story on the two death penalties imposed on the wrestler.

At the time, Richard Grenell, Trump’s acting director of national intelligence, urged the glacial-like bureaucracy that is the IOC to intervene.

The Iranian-American Sardar Pashaei, the former coach of Iran’s renowned Greco-Roman wrestling team, told Fox News, "There are multiple people from intelligence services watching [Iranian] athletes." 

The top three representatives of Iran’s National Olympic Committee in Tokyo have intelligence service backgrounds, Pashaei said. The chairman of Iran’s National Olympic Committee, Seyed Reza Salehi, has been accused by Iranians of the torture and murder of political prisoners when he served as an intelligence officer.

"These three are without a sports background and Navid is not there [i.e., alive and at the Games in Tokyo]," said Pashaei, who helps run the United for Navid campaign.

"We are going to keep his memory alive in all of the Olympics. Navid’s dream was to go to the Olympics and become an Olympic champion. When I saw Vahid with a picture of Navid in Tokyo, it was emotional for me. Navid and other Navids should be there and it should not be the place for terrorists," said Pashaei, in a reference to the IRGC marksman. 

Pashaei said his goal is to have a "a human rights sports award for those athletes who are outspoken, for example in China, Russia and Iran. They try to do something to stop discrimination. And the award would be in Navid Afkari’s name to keep Navid’s name alive and raise awareness among athletes, especially for countries that do not have democracies."

The involvement of famous athletes who have millions of followers on social media "could create a wave and be effective, like we did for Navid," Pashaei said.

The women’s rights campaigner and head of United for Navid, Masih Alinejad, told Fox News that she is in touch with the Afkari family every day. Navid’s mother is "crying for justice" and wants the world to help secure the release of Navid’s brothers, Vahaid and Habib. The regime arrested the brothers for their participation in the 2018 protest and has held them in prison since 2018. 

"Since September 2020, the authorities have subjected them to renewed torture and other ill-treatment in apparent retaliation for speaking out against the enforced disappearance of their brother Navid Afkari, who was executed in secret on 12 September 2020," wrote Amnesty International in June.

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The FBI disclosed last month that Iran’s regime sought to kidnap Alinejad from her home in Brooklyn and take her back to the Islamic Republic where she would likely face the death penalty for her human rights work.

She said she "expected the IOC to honor Navid and not a member of the IRGC." 

Alinejad urged the world to classify the Islamic Republic a "racist apartheid’ regime like the  pariah status of the former apartheid regime in South Africa. She said the IOC and other sports federations should not "normalize the murders of such a brutal regime" like the Islamic Republic. United for Navid demands that Iran’s clerical regime be suspended from all international sport events.