Iran journalist who 'inspired' 2017 protests sentenced to death

Ruhollah Zam, who was accused of fueling anti-government protests, was arrested after his return from exile in 2019.

Iranian journalist Ruhollah Zam, accused of inspiring mass anti-government protests in 2017, has been sentenced to death.

"The court has considered 13 counts of charges together as instances of 'corruption on earth' and therefore passed the death sentence," judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said on Tuesday.

"Corruption on Earth" is a charge often used in cases allegedly involving espionage or attempts to overthrow Iran's government. It was not immediately clear when the sentence was handed down.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced the arrest of Zam in October last year.

The elite IRGC described Zam, a former opposition figure who had lived in exile in France, as a "counter-revolutionary" who was "directed by France's intelligence service".

The details of his arrest, however, remain unclear. Though he was based in Paris, Zam somehow returned to Iran, where he was detained by intelligence officials. A series of televised confessions have aired in recent months over his work.

Speaking from Tehran, Al Jazeera's Assed Baig said: "There are reports that he [Zam] was lured to Iraq then handed over to Iran."

'Accused of insulting Khamenei'

Zam was also sentenced to time served over other charges, Esmaili added, without elaborating.

The sentence can be appealed before the supreme court, he said, quoted by the judiciary's official website.

Zam ran a channel on the Telegram messaging application called AmadNews.

At the time, he was accused by authorities of playing an active role in anti-government protests sparked by economic hardships during the winter of 2017-2018.

The initial spark for the 2017 protests was a sudden jump in food prices.

Many believe that hardline opponents of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani instigated the first demonstrations in the eastern city of Mashhad, trying to direct public anger at the president. But as protests spread from town to town, the backlash turned against the entire ruling class.

Soon, cries directly challenging Rouhani and even Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could be heard in online videos shared by Zam, whose channel also shared times and organisational details for the protests as well.

Telegram, the secure messaging app that remains widely popular among Iranians, shut down AmadNews after Iran demanded it remove the account for inciting an "armed uprising".

According to Al Jazeera's Baig, Zam was accused of instigating protests and teaching people how to make Molotov cocktails through his Telegram channel. He was also accused of insulting Khamenei, a grave issue in Iran.

"His Telegram channel routinely carried stories and exclusives about alleged corruption," said Baig.

Zam, who has said that he fled Iran after being falsely accused of working with foreign intelligence services, denied inciting violence on Telegram at the time.

The 2017 protests reportedly saw some 5,000 people detained and 25 killed.

According to Zam's indictment, published in February, he was accused of having "committed offences against the country's internal and external security" and "espionage for the French intelligence service", alongside "corruption on earth".

He was also accused of having insulted the "sanctity of Islam".

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 scholar 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.

French-Iranian academic's sentence upheld

Separately, the judiciary spokesman said an appeals court had upheld a previous prison sentence for Fariba Adelkhah, a prominent researcher with dual French-Iranian citizenship.

Esmaili said she had been handed two separate sentences, one for five years, and another for one year on security charges, and that under Iranian law, the longer sentence is the one a convict serves. He said her time spent in jail would count towards the sentence.

Iranian officials disclosed last July that Adelkhah had been arrested on espionage charges. Those charges were later dropped, but security-related charges remained against her.

Adelkhah and her French fellow researcher, Roland Marchal, were held in Iran's Evin Prison. Authorities released Marchal in March in an apparent prisoner swap for Iranian Jalal Ruhollahnejad, who had been held in France.

Source: aljazeera.com, Staff, June 30, 2020

⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Alabama Set To Carry Out Execution This Week

Alabama is preparing to execute Jeremy Williams, who pled guilty to the 2021 rape and murder of five-year-old Kamarie Holland. The execution is scheduled for Thursday (August 13) at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. Williams, who is 41, requested the death penalty and waived his right to appeal, making this the first execution in Alabama this year.

Alabama executes Jeremy Williams

Tennessee and Oklahoma have put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other, and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men in one day. Tennessee and Oklahoma put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other Thursday, and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men by lethal injection in one day for the first time since 2010. The Tennessee man was executed for killing a maid at a motel in 1985, and the Oklahoma man for killing his girlfriend in 2003. In Alabama, a man was put to death Thursday evening for killing a 5-year-old girl he had paid her mother to abuse.

Tennessee | The doctor who helps put prisoners to death

Dr. Mark Fowler assisted in the failed execution of a Tennessee prisoner. Physicians are meant to heal patients—why is he working in the death chamber? Mark Fowler, a physician with 25 years’ experience, stepped beneath the bright lights and approached the middle-aged man lying on a gurney. Around him, people in medical gowns prepared needles and sterile tubing. It had all the appearances of a hospital setting. Fowler had been called in to help establish an IV line through which the 57-year-old man, Tony Carruthers, would be injected with pharmaceutical drugs. The team had struggled to find a vein, so Fowler was summoned to set a central line—an intravenous catheter inserted into the major vein below the collarbone.

Tennessee executes Darrell Hines

The state has spent millions of dollars over decades to execute a seriously ill man who was already incarcerated. The state of Tennessee executed death row inmate Darrell Hines Thursday morning, according to an advocacy group. No formal announcement of the execution has been issued by state leaders yet. The execution was slated for 10 a.m. Thursday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. [DPN update] Hines was pronounced dead at 10:43 a.m. CDT. His last meal was fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, coleslaw, corn, fries, biscuits, a chicken sandwich, chocolate chip cake, and sweet tea.

The 'Black Widow' shakes Iran: 10 death sentences for a serial killer who killed 12 men

Kolthum Akbari, an Iranian woman widely dubbed the “Black Widow,” was convicted of serial murders of elderly men she married, often temporarily. Official accounts generally center on 11 murders (plus one attempted murder), though Akbari herself gave varying figures and investigations suggested she had many more marriages. The sentencing occurred primarily in September 2025 in Mazandaran Province, with ongoing reporting and updates into 2026. The 56- to 59-year-old killer confessed to killing at least 11 elderly men after temporarily or officially marrying them; Iranian authorities have linked her to additional marriages and possible further victims.

Oklahoma executes Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez

Oklahoma has carried out 1 of 3 executions set for the same day in the United States in another sign of the resurgence of the death penalty in the country. Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 13, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He was put to death by lethal injection for the murder of his common-law wife in 2003 at their Oklahoma City home. He admitted to police he shot her twice during an argument. Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, did not fight for his life, stunning his attorneys in July when he told the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board that he didn't want clemency. "It's time for me to pay for what I did," he said.

Tennessee set to execute Anthony Darrell Hines

Barring any last-minute interventions, the Tennessee Department of Correction will execute Anthony Darrell Hines by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville Thursday morning. This week, two courts had the opportunity to halt the execution: the federal court in Middle Tennessee and the U.S. Supreme Court. Gov. Bill Lee announced Tuesday he personally would not prevent the execution. “After deliberate consideration of Anthony Darrell Hines’ request for clemency, and after a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and do not plan to intervene,” he said in a written statement. The U.S. Supreme Court has not granted a stay or reprieve.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issues three death penalty reprieves

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issued execution reprieves for three death row inmates on Friday. In a statement, DeWine said he issued reprieves for Keith LaMar, Scott Group, and Davel Chinn, all of whom were set to be executed early next year. LaMar was scheduled to be executed on Jan. 13, 2027. He was convicted of aggravated murder for the deaths of five inmates during a 1993 riot at the Southern Ohio Correctional Institution in Lucasville. He received the death penalty for four of the killings. His new execution date is Jan. 13, 2030. Watch the latest NBC4 headlines in the video player above.

Arizona prosecutors seek death penalty a second time for 2 inmates

County Attorney Brad Miller said Aug. 6 that the nature of the attack and both men's past criminal records meet the strict legal bar required for execution under Arizona law. FLORENCE, Ariz. - Pinal County prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against two inmates accused of violently killing a fellow prisoner behind bars, officials announced Thursday. Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller filed a Notice of Intent to Seek the Death Penalty against Pete Van Winkle and Tracy Hampton in connection with the fatal attack on Kenneth Thompson.

Iran’s War on Women: Executions, Floggings, and the Politics of Fear

The Iranian regime is increasingly using death sentences, corporal punishment, and judicial persecution against women—not only to silence dissent but also to intimidate a society demanding change. The Iranian regime has long viewed women as central to the country’s struggle for freedom—and therefore as central targets of repression. The nationwide uprising of 2022 fundamentally altered the political landscape, demonstrating that Iranian women were no longer merely participants in protest movements but among their principal organizers and symbols. Since then, the authorities have steadily intensified their campaign against women, expanding the use of executions, imprisonment, corporal punishment, and judicial intimidation.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog