JEDDAH: Rights groups reacted with outrage on Saturday after the regime in Tehran hanged Iranian dissident journalist Ruhollah Zam, who was convicted of encouraging violence during anti-government protests in 2017.
Amnesty International said it was “shocked and horrified” by the execution. “We call on the international community, including member states of the UN Human Rights Council and the EU, to take immediate action to pressure the Iranian authorities to halt their escalating use of the death penalty as a weapon of political repression,” it said.
Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty’s deputy director for the Middle East, said Zam’s execution was a “deadly blow” to freedom of expression, and “a reprehensible bid to avoid an international campaign to save his life.”
The press advocacy group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) also condemned the hanging. “RSF is outraged at this new crime of Iranian justice and sees Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the mastermind of this execution,” the group said.
Zam, 42, the son of pro-reform Shiite cleric Mohammad-Ali Zam, turned against the regime after the 2009 presidential election protests. He was forced to flee Iran and was given political asylum in France. He lived in Paris, from where he ran Amadnews, a popular anti-regime forum on the Telegram messaging app.
BACKGROUND
In September 2019, on a visit to Baghdad, Ruhollah Zam was abducted by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and brought back to Iran.
In September 2019, on a visit to Baghdad, Zam was abducted by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and brought back to Iran. The IRGC claimed he had been “directed by France’s intelligence service.”
Zam was convicted of spying for France and an unnamed country in the region, cooperating with the “hostile government of America,” acting against “the country’s security,” insulting the “sanctity of Islam” and instigating violence during protests in 2017.
The protests began in late 2017 as regional demonstrations against economic hardship spread nationwide. At least 21 people were killed during the unrest and thousands were arrested.
Zam is not the first to be sentenced to death over the protests. Navid Afkari, a 27-year-old wrestler, was executed in September. The judiciary said he had been found guilty of “voluntary homicide” for stabbing to death a government employee in August 2018.
Three young men were also sentenced to death over links to protests in 2019, but they will be retried at the request of their defense teams.
Iran executed at least 251 people last year, the world’s second-highest total after China.
