Iran authorities on Saturday executed Ruhollah Zam, a previous opposition figure who experienced lived in exile in France and was implicated in anti-govt protests, days after his sentence was upheld.
State television reported the “counter-revolutionary” Zam was hanged in the early morning soon after the supreme court docket upheld his sentence due to “the severity of the crimes” dedicated in opposition to the Islamic republic.
Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili experienced on Tuesday reported Zam’s sentence was upheld by the supreme court docket “much more than a thirty day period back”.
London-centered human legal rights group Amnesty International, in a statement following his verdict was verified, explained Zam as a “journalist and dissident”.
It stated the confirmation marked “a surprising escalation in the use of the demise penalty as a weapon of repression”.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced the arrest of Zam in Oct 2019, boasting he experienced been “directed by France’s intelligence support”.
Point out tv stated he was “under the protection of several countries’ intelligence services”.
The official IRNA information company mentioned he was also convicted of espionage for France and an unnamed region in the area, cooperating with the “hostile federal government of The united states”, performing versus “the country’s protection”, insulting the “sanctity of Islam” and instigating violence all through protests in 2017.
At the very least 25 men and women were killed in the course of the unrest in December 2017 and January 2018 that was sparked by financial hardship.
Zam, who was granted political asylum in France and reportedly lived in Paris, ran a channel on the Telegram messaging app identified as Amadnews.
Telegram shut down the channel right after Iran demanded it eliminate the account for inciting an “armed rebellion”.
Zam was billed with “corruption on earth” — one of the most serious offences below Iranian law — and sentenced to demise in June.
As his trial started off, state tv broadcast a “documentary” about Zam’s “relations” with the Islamic republic’s foes.
The broadcaster also aired an “interview” with him in July, in which he is witnessed declaring he believed in reformism till he was detained in 2009 throughout protests from the disputed re-election of ultra-conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
He also denied obtaining instigated violence by means of his Telegram channel.
Amnesty has continuously termed on Iran to quit broadcasting films of “confessions” by suspects, stating they “violate the defendants’ rights”.
On Saturday, the legal rights team termed his execution a “fatal blow” to flexibility of expression.
Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty’s deputy director for the Middle East, stated she was “shocked and horrified” at his dying, including that the organisation considered it was “a reprehensible bid to prevent an intercontinental campaign to help you save his lifetime”.
The European Union on Saturday condemned Zam’s execution “in the strongest conditions”, a assertion from the EU Exterior Motion Provider stated, reiterating the bloc’s “irrevocable opposition to the use of money punishment below any instances”.
“It is also essential for the Iranian authorities to uphold the due procedure legal rights of accused people today and to cease the exercise of applying televised confessions to build and boost their guilt,” the statement additional.
Zam had lived in exile in France for several many years before currently being arrested by Iran’s Groundbreaking Guards underneath unclear situation.
Paris-primarily based push rights group Reporters With out Borders (RSF) claimed on Saturday it was “outraged” by the execution.
RSF experienced earlier claimed that Zam had disappeared on a vacation to Baghdad in Oct 2019, and accused Iran of abducting him in Iraq to encounter demo back home.
Zam is 1 of quite a few folks to have been sentenced to death more than participation or one-way links to protests that rocked Iran involving 2017 and 2019.
Navid Afkari, a 27-year-outdated wrestler, was executed at a prison in the southern city of Shiraz in September.
The judiciary stated he experienced been identified guilty of “voluntary murder” for stabbing to dying a governing administration staff in August 2018.
Shiraz and other city centres experienced been the scene of anti-government protests at the time.
A few younger males had been also sentenced to dying in excess of inbound links to deadly 2019 protests, but Iran’s supreme courtroom mentioned very last 7 days that it would retry them at the ask for of their defence teams.
Their sentences ended up initially upheld, with the judiciary saying evidence experienced been identified on their phones of them setting alight banking institutions, buses and public properties.
Amnesty International stated Iran executed at minimum 251 individuals final yr, the world’s next maximum total following China.
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