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Iran has executed Ruhollah Zam, a former opposition figure who had lived in exile in France and was involved in anti-government protests, state television said.
The broadcaster said that “counterrevolutionary” Mr. Zam was hanged the morning after the supreme court upheld his sentence due to “the seriousness of the crimes” committed against the Islamic republic.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard announced Zam’s arrest in October last year, claiming he was “led by France’s intelligence service.”
State television said it was “under the protection of the intelligence services of various countries.”
Mr. Zam was charged with “corruption on the ground”, one of the most serious crimes under Iranian law, and sentenced to death in June.
The official IRNA news agency said he was also convicted of espionage for France and an anonymous country in the region, cooperating with the “hostile US government”, acting against “the security of the country”, insulting the “sanctity of Islam” and instigating violence. during the 2017 protests.
At least 25 people died during the riots in December 2017 and January 2018, triggered by economic difficulties.
Zam, who reportedly lived in Paris, ran a channel on the Telegram messaging app called Amadnews.
Telegram shut down the channel after Iran demanded that it delete the account for inciting an “armed uprising.”
Mr. Zam was charged with “corruption on the ground”, one of the most serious crimes under Iranian law, and sentenced to death in June.
State television aired an “interview” with him in July, in which he appears to say that he believes in reformism until he was arrested in 2009 during protests against the disputed reelection of ultra-conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
He also denied instigating the violence through his Telegram channel.
Amnesty has repeatedly called on Iran to stop broadcasting videos of “confessions” from suspects, saying they “violate the rights of the accused.”
Zam is one of several people who have been sentenced to death for involvement in or links to the protests that rocked Iran between 2017 and 2019.
Navid Afkari, a 27-year-old fighter, was executed in a prison in the southern city of Shiraz in September.
The judiciary said he had been convicted of “voluntary manslaughter” for stabbing to death a government employee in August 2018.
Shiraz and several other urban centers across Iran had been the scene of anti-government protests and demonstrations at the time over economic and social difficulties.
Three youths were also sentenced to death for links to the deadly 2019 protests, but Iran’s supreme court said last week it would try again at a request from its defense team.
Initially, a court upheld their convictions on evidence that the judiciary said was found on their phones of them setting banks, buses and public buildings ablaze during the wave of anti-government protests.
Amnesty International said that Iran executed at least 251 people last year, the second highest number in the world after China.
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