Sardar Pashaei

Navid Afkari was one of the professional wrestlers in the Iranian national team who was arrested by the Iranian government in 2020 and later sentenced to death after a trial and interrogation. This decision of the Iranian government led to the reaction of sports heroes around the world, including Sedar Pashaei. Pashaei, as the coach of the Iranian national youth wrestling team and due to his close relationship with the wrestlers of this team, including Navid Afkari, reacted more strongly than others and participated in the Alliance campaign for Navid to try to dissuade the Iranian government from executing Navid. Finally, despite international protests, Navid was executed in 2021. In this regard, Sardar Pashaei interviewed media in the world such as CNN, BBC, DW and so on and tried to draw the attention of the international community to the situation of Iranian athletes under the rule of The Islamic republic government.

Sardar Pashaei (Persian: سردار پاشایی, Sorani Kurdish: سەردار پاشائی; born 12 May 1979) is a retired national wrestler, medalist and coach of the Iranian national youth wrestling team. He won the Asian Youth Wrestling Championship in 1998 in Kazakhstan and the same year won the World Youth Wrestling Championship in Cairo and won the gold medal. He currently lives in the United States and is one of the main leaders of the Navid Afkari campaign.

Sardar Pashaei was born in Saqqez, Iran in 1979 and completed his primary education in the same city. Later, he continued his education at the University of Tehran and was able to obtain a Master of Physical Education and Sports Science. Due to the fact that wrestling has a special place in Saqqez and many champions of this city had emerged in the international arena like abdollah Chamangoli, he also entered this sport and learned the advanced techniques of this sport from experienced coaches. Then he was able to win first places in regional and national competitions.