The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) responding to a question from Iran International Television on Tuesday, “strongly condemned” the Islamic Republic of Iran for the execution of dissident journalist Ruhollah Zam.

IFJ had remained silent on the widely condemned execution since December 12 and many Iranian journalists abroad began criticizing the organization for not speaking out.

Zam who lived in Paris and had a popular social media news channel in Persian was abducted in Iraq during a trip in September 2019 and taken to Iran where he was subjected to torture, forced confessions and a closed-door trial where he was sentenced to death. He was hanged on December 12.

In response to an inquiry by Iran International, a representative of IJF explained that according to its rules the organization “does not recognise social media admins as journalists,” although “he was a respectful social media news channel admin.” It went on to quote Iranian media outlets abroad describing Zam as an admin of Amadnews, with 1.5 million followers on the social media app Telegram.

The IJF stated that although it does not consider Zam a journalist, but it condemns his execution. “We strongly condemn the Iranian regime for executing Zam as well, but we are afraid that we cannot still call him a journalist and his Telegram channel was not a media.”

The IFJ did acknowledge that Amadnews “was a news and report platform”, but it said Zam did not have a background as a journalist. This raises potential questions of how one starts as a journalist and if working in official media outlets makes a person a journalist.

Regarding IFJ's claim that Zam had no track record in journalism, Saham News, a website based in London in a tweet reiterated that Mr. Zam was a staff member who produced news, reports and conducted interviews. This predates the establishment of Amad News and lasted around four years. It is not clear if IFJ is aware of Zam's full background, although the head of its Iran section must have been aware of Zam's media activities.

Radio Farda also reacted to IFJ's statement tweeting, "Radio Farda has been calling Mr. Ruhollah Zam by his official media affiliation as 'Director of Amad News Telegram Channel'. Regardless of the journalistic accuracy or editorial quality of the content, any head of a media outlet, in a broad term is regarded as a journalist by us."

Iran International also issued a statement on Twitter following IFJ's statement saying, "Despie @IFJGlobal claim Iran International has consistently referred to Zam as both journalist and founder and director of Amad News Telegram Channel. We consider Telegram as one of the main digital platforms that media outlets would use to connect with their audiences in Iran."

Some Iranian journalists abroad say that many people working in Iranian state-controlled media routinely avoid reporting all the facts and instead engage in glorifying the regime and its officials, without mentioning alternative facts and views. However, according to IJF standards these people would qualify as journalists because they are gainfully employed as such by traditional state media.

Crititcs would argue that in the age of social media's prominence in news dissemination and reporting, one does not need to be officially known as a traditional journalist to make valuable contributions to public's need for information. Zam exposed many cases of corruption and regime brutality, although sometimes he made errors in his news reporting, which traditional journalists also make. He can be described as an 'activist journalist' but there are many others who use journalism to defend causes.