Iran executes French-based dissident journalist captured last year
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[December 12, 2020]
(Reuters) -Iranian dissident
journalist Ruhollah Zam, who was convicted of fomenting violence during
anti-government protests in 2017, was executed on Saturday, Iran's state
television reported.
Iran said on Tuesday its Supreme Court had upheld the death sentence of
Zam, who was captured in 2019 after years in exile. His Amadnews feed
had more than one million followers.
State TV said on Saturday Zam, "director of the counter-revolutionary
Amadnews network, was hanged this morning".
France and human rights groups had condemned the Supreme Court's
decision.
On Saturday, press advocacy group Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
condemned the execution.
"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 tweeted.
The son of a pro-reform Shi'ite cleric, Zam fled Iran and was given
asylum in France.
In October 2019, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps said it had trapped
Zam in a "complex operation using intelligence deception." It did not
say where the operation took place.
Nour News, a news agency close to the Revolutionary Guards, said last
week that Zam was detained by Guards agents after he travelled to Iraq
in September 2019 and brought to Iran.
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Ruhollah Zam, a dissident journalist who was captured in what Tehran
calls an intelligence operation, speaks during his trial in Tehran,
Iran June 2, 2020. Mizan News Agency/WANA (West Asia News Agency)
via REUTERS
Iranian officials have accused the United States as well as Tehran's
regional rival Saudi Arabia and government opponents living in exile
of stoking the unrest, which began in late 2017 as regional protests
over economic hardship spread nationwide.
Officials said 21 people were killed during the unrest and thousands
were arrested. The unrest was among the worst Iran has seen in
decades, and was followed by even deadlier protests last year
against fuel price rises.
Zam's Amadnews feed was suspended by messaging service Telegram in
2018 for allegedly inciting violence but later reappeared under
another name.
(dubai.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com; Editing by Sam Holmes and Mark
Potter)
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