Iranian journalist is sentenced to death three years after he inspired anti-government protests
- Ruhollah Zam had run a website posting information about Iranian officials
- He lived and worked in exile in Paris before returning to Iran & being arrested
- His death sentence was announced on Tuesday morning
An Iranian journalist whose online work helped inspire the country’s 2017 economic protests has been sentenced to death.
Ruhollah Zam had run a website called AmadNews which posted embarrassing videos and information about Iranian officials.
He had been living and working in exile in Paris before being convinced to return to Iran, where he was arrested in October 2019.
Iranian journalist Ruhollah Zam (pictured on June 2) whose online work helped inspire the country’s 2017 economic protests has been sentenced to death
Zam later appeared in televised confessions admitting his wrongdoings and offering an apology for his past activities.
Iranian judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili announced Zam’s sentence on Tuesday morning.
Zam ran a channel on the messaging app Telegram that spread messages about upcoming protests in 2017 and shared videos from the demonstration.
This gained him widespread notoriety, drawing the attention of Iranian authorities.
Zam ran a channel on the messaging app Telegram that spread messages about upcoming protests in 2017 and shared videos from the demonstration. Above, , university students attend a protest inside Tehran University while anti-riot Iranian police prevent them to join other protestors, in Tehran, December 2017
Telegram shut down the channel over Iranian government complaints it spread information about how to make petrol bombs. The channel later continued under a different name.
Zam is the son of Shia cleric Mohammad Ali Zam, a reformist who once served in a government policy position in the early 1980s.
The cleric wrote a letter published by Iranian media in July 2017 in which he said he would not support his son over AmadNews’ reporting and messages on its Telegram channel.