Watchdog

Ruhollah Zam, an Iranian opposition journalist and activist whose online work helped inspire nationwide economic protests in 2017, has been sentenced to death for his actions following what Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called a “grossly unfair” trial.

A Revolutionary Court “considered that the 13 charges [against Zam] were the equivalent of the charge of spreading ‘corruption on earth’ and therefore passed the death sentence,” judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said on June 30, according to the judiciary-affiliated Mizan Online news agency.

The charge is often leveled in cases involving espionage or attempts to overthrow Iran's government.

It was not clear when the sentence was handed down.

Zam's website, AmadNews, and a channel he created on the popular messaging app Telegram had informed people on the timing of the protests and published embarrassing information about Iranian officials.

The 2017 protests represented the biggest challenge to Iran since postelection mass unrest in 2009 and set the stage for similar revolts in November 2019. Thousands were detained by police in the protests, and 25 people were killed.

Zam had been living and working in exile in Paris before being lured into returning to Iran, where he was arrested in October 2019 under still unclear circumstances. French authorities have "strongly condemned" the move.

In a statement condemning Zam’s sentencing, RSF said he was “kidnapped in Iraq” by members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and forcibly returned to Iran.

“After being illegally kidnapped and arrested, Rouhollah Zam has been tried in a grossly unfair manner and then given an inhuman and unacceptable sentence,” said Reza Moini, the head of RSF’s Iran-Afghanistan desk.

Zam, whom the Paris-based media freedom watchdog described as a “very controversial figure both in Iran and in the Iranian diaspora," appeared in televised confessions in recent months admitting his wrongdoings and offering an apology for his past activities.

He had previously denied allegations he incited violence but openly admited that AmadNews’s mission was to take down the government.

Esmaili also announced on June 30 that a five-year sentence handed to Iranian-French academic Fariba Adelkhah has been upheld.

Adelkhah, an anthropologist who often traveled to Iran for research, was detained in June 2019 and sentenced in the last month on charges relating to security.

Iran has rejected Paris’s repeated calls to release her.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and IRNA

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) has called on Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government to scrap a recent hardening of the Hungarian asylum system, saying some provisions could violate international laws.

A Hungarian government spokesman declined to comment immediately.

Hungary last month shut so-called migrant transit zones on its borders, freeing some 300 refugees from prison-like conditions while at the same time tightening the regulations and effectively barring future asylum applicants.

The new rules require asylum seekers to submit applications at consulates in neighboring countries rather than at the Hungarian border.

"This may expose asylum-seekers to the risk of refoulement and ill-treatment which would amount to a violation of the 1951 Refugee Convention and other international and regional human rights instruments to which Hungary is a State Party," the UNHCR said in a statement on June 29.

"Effective access to territory is an essential pre-condition to be able to exercise the right to seek asylum," the statement said.

Human rights groups have already voiced concern that the newly tightened rules would make it even harder for refugees to gain asylum in the EU via Hungary.

UNHCR urged Budapest to withdraw the act and bring its asylum system in line with international human rights laws as well as European Union law.

At the peak of European Union's 2015 migrant crisis, Orban, one of the fiercest opponents of immigration, ordered Hungary's southern border to be sealed, blocking a route for hundreds of thousands of migrants.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP