taken on June 30, 2020, Ruhollah Zam, a former opposition figure
who had lived in exile in France and had been implicated in
anti-government protests, speaks during his trial at Iran’s
Revolutionary Court in Tehran.ALI SHIRBAND / MIZAN NEWS AGENCY /
AFP
Iran on Saturday executed Ruhollah Zam, a former
opposition figure who had lived in exile in France and was
implicated in anti-government protests, days after his sentence was
upheld.
State television said the “counter-revolutionary” Zam was hanged
in the morning after the supreme court upheld his sentence due to
“the severity of the crimes” committed against the Islamic
republic.
Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili had on Tuesday said
Zam’s sentence was upheld by the supreme court “more than a month
ago”.
London-based rights group Amnesty International, in a statement
after his verdict was confirmed, described Zam as a “journalist and
dissident”.
It said the confirmation marked “a shocking escalation in the
use of the death penalty as a weapon of repression.”
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced the arrest of Zam in
October 2019, claiming he had been “directed by France’s
intelligence service”.
State television said he was “under the protection of several
countries’ intelligence services.”
The official IRNA news agency said he was also convicted of
espionage 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 the 2017 protests.
At least 25 people were killed during the unrest in December
2017 and January 2018 that was sparked by economic hardship.
Zam, who was granted political asylum in France and reportedly
lived in Paris, ran a channel on the Telegram messaging app called
Amadnews.
Telegram shut down the channel after Iran demanded it removes
the account for inciting an “armed uprising”.
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– ‘Corruption on earth’ –
Zam was charged with “corruption on earth” — one of the most
serious offences under Iranian law — and sentenced to death in
June.
State television aired an “interview” with him in July, in which
he appears as saying he believed in reformism until he was detained
in 2009 during protests against the disputed re-election of
ultra-conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
He also denied having instigated violence through his Telegram
channel.
Amnesty has repeatedly called on Iran to stop broadcasting
videos of “confessions” by suspects, saying they “violate the
defendants’ rights”.
Zam is one of several people to have been put on death row over
participation or links to protests that rocked Iran between 2017
and 2019.
Navid Afkari, a 27-year-old wrestler, was executed at a prison
in the southern city of Shiraz in September.
The judiciary said he had been found guilty of “voluntary
homicide” for stabbing to death a government employee in August
2018.
Shiraz and several other urban centres across Iran had been the
scene of anti-government protests and demonstrations at the time
over economic and social hardship.
Three young men were also sentenced to death over links to
deadly 2019 protests, but Iran’s supreme court said last week that
it would retry them over a request by their defence team.
Their sentences were initially upheld by a tribunal over
evidence the judiciary said was found on their phones of them
setting alight banks, buses and public buildings during the wave of
anti-government protests.
Amnesty International said Iran executed at least 251 people
last year, the world’s second-highest toll after China.
-AFP
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