Iran Executes Opposition Figure Ruhollah Zam

Iranian authorities on Saturday executed Ruhollah Zam, a former opposition figure who had lived in exile in France and had been implicated in anti-government protests in the winter of 2017 to 2018.

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, state television said.

Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili had on Tuesday said Zam's sentence was upheld by the supreme court "more than a month ago".

The news brought a wave of condemnation from abroad.

The European Union denounced Zam's execution "in the strongest terms", reiterating the bloc's "irrevocable opposition to the use of capital punishment under any circumstances".

While the London-based human rights group Amnesty International said the execution of the "journalist and dissident" marked a "deadly blow" to freedom of expression.

Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty's deputy director for the Middle East, said she was "shocked and horrified" at Zam's death.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards announced his arrest in October 2019, claiming he had been "directed by France's intelligence service".

Zam had lived for several years in France and was arrested in circumstances that still remain unclear.

Paris-based press rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said on Saturday it was "outraged" by the execution.

RSF had previously claimed that Zam had disappeared on a trip to Baghdad in October 2019, and accused Iran of abducting him in Iraq to face trial back home.

Iranian 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 protests in 2017.

At least 25 people were killed during the unrest in December 2017 and January 2018 that was sparked by economic hardship.

He was charged with "corruption on earth" -- one of the most serious offences under Iranian law -- and sentenced to death in June.

As his trial started, state television 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 seen saying he believed in reformism until he was detained in 2009 during protests against the disputed re-election of ultra-conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Amnesty has repeatedly called on Iran to stop broadcasting videos of "confessions" by suspects, saying they "violate the defendants' rights".

The French foreign ministry on Saturday denounced what it called "a serious attack on freedom of expression and freedom of the press".

It condemned Zam's execution as "an unacceptable and barbaric act, contrary to Iran's international commitments."

Zam is one of several people to have been sentenced to death over participation or links to the 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 other urban centres had been the scene of anti-government protests at the time.

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 at the request of their defence teams.

Their sentences were initially upheld, with the judiciary saying evidence had been found on their phones of them setting alight banks, buses and public buildings.

Amnesty International said Iran executed at least 251 people last year, the world's second highest toll after China.