Ruhollah Zam

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Ruhollah Zam (2020)

Ruhollah Zam (also Ruhollah Sam ; Persian روح‌الله زم; * 1978 ; † December 12, 2020 in Tehran ) was an Iranian journalist , blogger and opponent of the regime. Zam, who last lived in France , arrived in Iran in 2019 under circumstances that were not precisely clarified, where he was sentenced to death and executed.

Live and act

Ruhollah Zam was born in 1978 to the reform-minded Iranian clergyman Mohammad Ali Zam, who worked in the government of the newly established Islamic Republic in the early 1980s.

After the controversial re-election of the then Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadineschād in 2009, Zam raised allegations of election fraud and was imprisoned. He then fled to France via Malaysia , where he was granted political asylum . He lived there with his wife and children in Montauban and was under police protection .

In exile, he disseminated information and calls for protest and civil disobedience to the Iranian public through his AmadNews website and the Telegram online service . Among other things, he helped plan protests in Iran and posted videos online in which demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans, including those directed directly against “ Supreme Leader ” Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rohani . He also expressed criticism of other regime critics, whose attitude he found too indulgent.

In July 2017, the Iranian media published an open letter from Zam's father to his son in which he publicly condemned him.

In December 2017, Telegram blocked Zam's channel after Iranian authorities accused him of inciting violence on the channel. Zam denied this. Telegram is of particular importance in Iran; According to the Associated Press news agency in late 2017, an estimated 40 million of Iran's 80 million citizens are using the service. The protection of privacy made possible by Telegram plays a major role here.

In October 2019, while on a trip to Iraq , Ruhollah Zam was arrested there by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and deported to Iran. The exact circumstances of his arrest are unknown. A journalist with the BBC's Persian-speaking service wrote after his execution that Zam had been lured to Iraq with the promise of meeting the influential Iranian Ayatollah Ali as-Sistani there in order to obtain his support.

Zam's case was heavily mediated by the Iranian rulers. After he was abducted to Iran, the Revolutionary Guards used Zam's own Telegram channel to announce his arrest. He had to make a confession on television. Also on Iranian television, articles were broadcast depicting Zam's alleged network of contacts and the intelligence operation with which he was lured to Iraq and captured by the guards. According to these representations, it was also possible to deceive foreign secret services.

In June 2020, Zam was sentenced to death for his role in the protests of the Iranian opposition in 2017/2018 . Among other things, he was accused of "crimes against internal and external security" and espionage for the French secret service, as well as "insulting Islam".

After the Iranian Supreme Court upheld the judgment on December 8, 2020, Ruhollah Zam was executed by hanging four days later in Tehran .

Web links

Commons : Ruhollah Zam  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Iran has blogger Ruhollah Zam executed. In: spiegel.de . December 12, 2020, accessed December 12, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Jon Gambrell: Protests in Iran fanned by exiled journalist, messaging app. In: apnews.com . December 31, 2017, accessed December 12, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Ruhollah Zam: Iran executes journalist accused of fanning unrest. In: bbc.com . December 12, 2020, accessed December 12, 2020 .
  4. ↑ a b c L'Iran exécute Rouhollah Zam, un opposant ayant vécu en exil en France avant d'être enlevé en Irak. In: lemonde.fr . December 12, 2020, accessed December 12, 2020 (French).
  5. ^ Opposition Ruhollah Sam executed in Iran. In: msn.com . December 12, 2020, accessed December 12, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Journalist critical of the government executed in Iran. In: deutschlandfunkkultur.de . December 12, 2020, accessed December 12, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Zam, Ruhollah
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sam, Ruhollah
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Iranian journalist, blogger and opponent of the regime
DATE OF BIRTH 1978
DATE OF DEATH December 12, 2020
Place of death Tehran , Iran