{"id":1691,"date":"2020-12-14T22:52:21","date_gmt":"2020-12-14T22:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1691"},"modified":"2021-01-01T20:16:17","modified_gmt":"2021-01-01T20:16:17","slug":"europe-says-no-business-as-usual-with-iran-after-hanging-of-dissident-journalist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1691","title":{"rendered":"Europe Says \u201cNo Business as Usual\u201d with Iran After Hanging of Dissident Journalist"},"content":{"rendered":"

France Tweets Outrage over \u201cBarbaric and Unacceptable\u201d Execution of\u00a0Rouhollah Zam<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

December 14, 2020\u2014Major European countries have pulled out of a planned\u00a0Europe-Iran Business Forum\u00a0that was scheduled to begin today, December 14, in protest over Iran\u2019s execution on December 12, 2020, of the dissident journalist Rouhollah Zam.<\/p>\n

The ambassadors of France, Germany, Austria and Italy all canceled their participation in the online forum, which was due to feature keynote speeches by Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union, and Iran\u2019s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.<\/p>\n

Zam, 47, who administered a news site critical of the Islamic Republic\u2019s policies, was convicted in June 2020 of \u201ccorruption on earth\u201d and hanged after Iran\u2019s supreme court upheld his death sentence.<\/p>\n

\u201cEurope\u2019s refusal to participate in a business forum with Iran sends a clear and welcome message: the world will not turn a blind eye to the profound human rights violations taking place in the Islamic Republic,\u201d said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).<\/p>\n

In a\u00a0statement\u00a0on December 12, 2020, France, Germany, Italy and the EU said: \u201cThe European Union condemns this act in the strongest terms \u2026,\u201d and added that it is \u201cimperative for the Iranian authorities to uphold the due process rights of accused individuals and to cease the practice of using televised confessions to establish and promote their guilt.\u201d<\/p>\n

France\u2019s foreign ministry\u00a0tweeted\u00a0on December 13, 2020, that it would not take part in the event, due to \u201cthe barbaric and unacceptable execution of journalist #Rohollah_Zam\u201d referencing the hashtag\u00a0#nobusinessasusual.<\/p>\n

The German foreign affairs ministry also\u00a0tweeted\u00a0it would not participate in the panel event.<\/p>\n

The event had been meant to \u201cpave the way for expanded trade and investment relations, particularly in light of the positive outcome of the US elections,\u201d according to the event website.<\/p>\n

Over the past year, as part of an intensifying suppression of peaceful dissent in Iran, the Islamic Republic has notably increased the use of the\u00a0death penalty in political cases, applying it against protestors and dissidents.<\/p>\n

Executed Journalist Managed a Dissident Online News Site<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rouhollah Zam was\u00a0sentenced to death\u00a0in connection with managing an online news channel on the Telegram messaging app, which is widely used in Iran.<\/p>\n

As administrator of the popular\u00a0Amad News\u00a0channel, Zam was living in exile in Paris when he inexplicably traveled to Baghdad on October 14, 2019. From there he was then somehow brought into Iran by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).<\/p>\n

His trial began on February 10, 2020, in Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran, presided over by Judge Abolqasem Salavati, who has a long history of handing out heavy sentences against peaceful activists, journalists and human rights lawyers in unfair trials that deny due process. The six and last session of the trial was held on June 10, 2020.<\/p>\n

According to the\u00a0indictment, Zam committed \u201ccorruption on earth\u201d during the period from 2016 to the time of his arrest, by allegedly committing a broad range of national security crimes against the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n

The authorities in Iran typically issue national security charges against dissidents, activists, human rights lawyers and other critics of the state, and convict them in prosecutions that flagrantly deny due process and fair trial rights.<\/p>\n

UN Condemns Execution of Zam as \u201cUnconscionable\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran and the Special Rapporteur on Summary Executions also released\u00a0statementcondemning the execution of Ruhollah Zam, calling his conviction and execution \u201cunconscionable\u201d and a serious violation of Iran\u2019s obligations under international law.<\/p>\n

The UN experts said in the statement: \u201cIt is clear that Ruhollah Zam was executed for expressing opinions and providing information on\u00a0AmadNews<\/em>\u00a0that dissented from the official views of the Iranian Government.\u201d<\/p>\n

It continued: \u201cThere are serious and credible concerns that judicial proceedings against him breached fair trial rights, including the broadcast of an alleged forced confession when he was detained. His execution is an arbitrary deprivation of his right to life. We strongly condemn the Iranian Government\u2019s actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The UN added: \u201cIran must end its systematic use of the judicial process to impose arbitrary detention and death sentences against human rights defenders, journalists and other individuals who express dissent against the Government through the free exercise of their internationally-recognized human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dual National\u00a0Kameel Ahmady<\/strong>\u00a0Sentenced to Eight Years as Human Rights Violations Accelerate<\/strong><\/p>\n

In addition to the expanded use of the death penalty in political cases, other egregious violations of human rights are intensifying in Iran.<\/p>\n

The British-Iranian anthropologist, social researcher and author\u00a0Kameel Ahmady\u00a0has been sentenced to eight years in prison by a Revolutionary Court in Tehran on the charge of \u201ccollaborating with a hostile state\u201d according to a\u00a0statement\u00a0by a colleague of Ahmady\u2019s that quoted Amir Raesian, Kameel Ahmady\u2019s lawyer. Kameel\u2019s research is on topics such as female genital mutilation, child marriage and so-called \u201cwhite\u201d (informal) marriages in Iran.<\/p>\n

In addition,\u00a0harsh prison sentences\u00a0are being issued against dissidents and human rights defenders,\u00a0new convictions\u00a0under manufactured charges are being hastily issued to keep political prisoners nearing release behind bars, civil society organizations are being shuttered, and street protests have been\u00a0violently crushed.<\/p>\n

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France Tweets Outrage over \u201cBarbaric and Unacceptable\u201d Execution of\u00a0Rouhollah Zam December 14, 2020\u2014Major European countries have pulled out of a planned\u00a0Europe-Iran Business Forum\u00a0that was scheduled to begin today, December 14,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[526],"class_list":["post-1691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights","tag-rouhollah-zam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1691"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1698,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691\/revisions\/1698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}