Iran Continues Targeting Activists One Year After Execution Of Ruhollah Zam

(New York, N.Y.) — Last Sunday, December 12, marked one year since the Islamic Republic of Iran executed Ruhollah Zam, an Iranian activist and former journalist who lived in exile with refugee status in France and openly sought the overthrow of the Iranian regime. Zam became a target for the regime after he founded a Telegram channel in 2019 that helped spark nationwide economic protests. Later that year, he was kidnapped by Iranian authorities when he was lured from his home in France to Iraq.

The anniversary of Zam’s death comes days after the U.S. Treasury imposed new sanctions on the Special Units of Iran’s Law Enforcement Force, Counter-Terror Special Forces, two prisons, a prison director, and Iran’s Basij militia commander Gholamreza Soleimani for their human rights abuses. 

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) has outlined in its War on Protesters resource how the Iranian regime uses violence, detentions, executions, and obstruction of communications. Following Zam’s arrest, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) posted a photo on his Telegram channel showing him in captivity with the caption “This is just the beginning.” 

Iran’s judicial system, headed by Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, remains among the most brutal in the world. The Iranian regime executes more people per capita than any other country. It carries out more total executions than any nation but China, whose population is over 17 times Iran’s. Tehran continues to target political dissidents and ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities for execution. Capital punishment can be—and often is—carried out against juvenile offenders and for nonviolent crimes.

To read UANI’s profile on Ruhollah Zam, please click here. 

To read UANI’s profile on Iran’s Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, please click here. 

To read UANI’s resource Iran’s War on Protesters: Death, Detention, and Darkness, please click here. 

To read UANI’s resource Cruel and Inhuman: Executions and Other Barbarities in Iran’s Judicial System, please click here.

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