Iran executes journalist Rouhollah Zam

Dec. 12 (UPI) — Iran executed Amad Information journalist Rouhollah Zam by hanging Saturday sparking worldwide outcry.

Authorities specific Zam in link with his opposition news channel Amad News, which they joined to January 2018 protests in opposition to the institution, in accordance to Amnesty Intercontinental. They also publicly accused Zam in courtroom paperwork of “espionage” for Israel and France, “cooperation with the hostile state of the United States,” “crimes against national security,” and “spreading propaganda towards the process.”

“We are shocked and horrified to learn that the Iranian authorities executed dissident journalist Rouhollah Zam at dawn right now,” Amnesty International explained in a statement.

Zam was sentenced to demise in June on the demand of “corruption on earth, ” a charge that doesn’t specify the crime, but the Iranian governing administration has made use of for alleged tries to overthrow it.

The Supreme Court upheld Zam’s dying sentence Tuesday.

“The authorities rushed to execute Rouhollah Zam a mere four times later, in what we consider was a reprehensible bid to avoid an worldwide campaign to preserve his existence,” Amnesty International’s statement claimed, incorporating that the hanging was “strictly prohibited under international regulation.”

Reporters Without Borders, an global press independence business, named the trial was “grossly unfair.”

The group reported Zam was “illegally kidnapped and arrested” in October 2019 during a check out to Iraq by Iraq Innovative Guards and forcibly returned to Iran immediately after residing in exile in France.

Zam was held with no any make contact with with his spouse and children or legal professionals for nine months, according to a letter his father wrote to the Iranian head of the judiciary.

In July, Iran’s point out Television aired a propaganda system appearing to present Zam confessing to his crimes.

Iran has been 1 of the most oppressive nations for journalists for the past 40 a long time, in accordance to Reporters With out Borders. At least 860 journalists and citizen-journalists have been imprisoned and executed considering that 1979.