Navid Afkari: Executed Iranian wrestling star's voice is 'everywhere now'

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By Don Riddell, CNN

Updated 1011 GMT (1811 HKT) September 12, 2021

Wrestler Navid Afkari was executed by the Iranian government on September 12, 2020. The story of his life and the movement he has inspired is being republished by CNN International to mark the anniversary of his death. This article was first published on June 28, 2021.

(CNN)It was the worst news that anybody could have woken up to; as Sardar Pashaei reached for his phone one morning in September, he knew immediately that something terrible had happened. 

«When I woke at about six or seven o'clock in the morning,» he told CNN Sport, «I see a lot of phone calls from Persian television. And when I listened to the voicemail of my journalist friend, I just cried. I