Editorial of the “World”. Respect for human rights has never characterized the Islamic Republic of Iran. But the kidnapping, the expeditious trial followed by the execution by hanging, Saturday, December 12, of the journalist and opponent Rouhollah Zam is an ignominy which marks a new stage in the escalation of repression and in the rise of the the toughest wing of the regime, opposed to any resumption of contact with the West.
Rouhollah Zam, 41, a refugee in France since 2012, had played an important role in relaying on his channel, Amadnews, followed by 1.4 million subscribers through the encrypted Telegram messaging, the images of the anti-regime demonstrations of the winter 2017-2018. He also revealed cases of corruption implicating Iranian leaders thanks to high-ranking informants.
Despite warnings from the French security services protecting him, Rouhollah Zam went to Iraq in 2019, trapped by offers of financial aid from alleged Iranian opponents for his television channel project. Arrested by the Revolutionary Guards, Tehran’s ideological army, he was forced to make a televised “confession”. In June, the regime announced that it had been found guilty of all the charges, including “Crimes against the security of the country”, ” spying ” for the benefit of France and insult to “Sacredness of Islam”.
Barbarian and unacceptable, as the French foreign ministry denounced, the execution of the opponent shows that the mullahs’ regime no longer hesitates to kidnap its opponents abroad. Another exiled Iranian dissident, Habib Chaab, a refugee in Sweden, was kidnapped and kidnapped by a drug trafficker working for the Iranian secret service in Istanbul where he was lured in October by an Iranian woman.
Hopes for a resumption of dialogue
The absence of the slightest reaction to these abuses on the part of President Hassan Rouhani, a supporter of a rapprochement with the West, reflects the weakening, even the alignment of the moderate wing, on which the hopes of recovery are based. of the nuclear dialogue linked to the election of Joe Biden. The latter hinted that he intended to reinstate the agreement on the nuclear issue, signed in 2015 with the international community, which Donald Trump left in 2018.
The organization of these kidnappings abroad by the Revolutionary Guards also reflects the growing militarization of the regime and the military’s ambition to win the presidential election scheduled for June 2021, for which Mr. Rohani cannot stand, because he is completing his second and last term. The execution of Rouhollah Zam also appears as a warning to France, another potential support for President Rouhani.
Even if the complex balance within Iranian power – between an elected president but without real power, an omnipotent Supreme Leader and guardians of the revolution not controlled by the power -, makes uncertain political analyzes, all these heightened signs of aggressiveness and defiance are worrisome. Iran, which has long known how to practice a form of restraint, is in the process of transforming itself into a rogue state, with the at least passive complicity of its Turkish and Iraqi neighbors.
This drift can only worry all those who, in an Iranian society bruised by a terrible economic crisis aggravated by Covid-19, in the Iranian diaspora and the partner states of this great country, aspire only the peace.
