Following the execution of Iranian journalist Ruhollah Zam on Saturday December 12, the European Union, Germany, France, Canada and the United States all condemned the execution partly under pressure from the social media as much as from any concern for human rights.

Tehran summoned the ambassadors of Germany and France to the Foreign Ministry to caution them for undermining “Iran’s sovereignty.”  While the world awaits a diplomatic breakthrough between the West and Iran after Joe Biden’s victory in November’s US presidential election, Iran, still bearing the heavy burden of US sanctions, decided to hang a journalist it abducted in Iraq last year. Summoning European ambassadors might not help Tehran’s cause if it expects Europe to persuade the incoming Biden administration to ease US sanctions introduced by President Donald Trump.

Iranian expatriates living in Western countries are becoming more vocal and more organized in demanding action by their governments on human rights violations by the Islamic Republic. During Saturday and early Sunday, Iranian netizens called on foreign countries and human rights organizations to condemn the abduction, torturing and execution of Zam.

Some accused the EU of turning a blind eye to Iran’s violation of human rights and of negotiating with Iran for financial gain. In the US, Iranian journalist Nik Kowsar wrote that anyone who failed to condemn Zam’s execution would be damned by public opinion, adding that “any delay” in doing so “would be unacceptable.”

Darya Safai, a Belgian-Iranian member of the parliament in Belgium, referred to a meeting between European officials and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in the coming days in the aftermath of Zam’s execution, and asked Joseph Borel, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, how would he feel sitting next to a representative of the Iranian regime.

Other Iranian social media users were even less forgiving. One called the EU’s concern for human rights “the joke of the century,” adding that “Europe doesn’t care about Human Rights, all Europe cares about is money, money, money.”

 Meanwhile, looking for an explanation for why Iran executed someone who used to run a Telegram channel, many Iranian journalists, political analysts and observers pointed to Zam’s channel having nearly 2 million subscribers. Others suggested that the Iranian government was especially annoyed by Zam’s Telegram channel being more influential and trusted than over 50 state-run television channels.

Masoumeh Naseri tweeted that “they killed Ruhollah Zam because all of the Iranian government’s media fleet including the state television, the Culture Ministry, the Islamic Propaganda Organization and the like could not compete with what Zam accomplished single-handedly on Telegram.”

While some individuals and media outlets who try to show neutrality concurred with the Iranian authorities that Zam was executed for inspiring the nationwide protests in 2017-2018, other Iranian observers found more recent explanations. Iranian analyst Kamran Matin wrote in a series of tweets that “Zam’s execution comes after last year’s country-wide protests which the regime suppressed by killing hundreds of people and immediately after the killing of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and multiple explosions in nuclear sites making a mockery of Iran’s claim to impenetrable security and intelligence system.”

Matin added: “Executions in Iran often reflect intersection of strategic and psychological considerations: Reminding the population of the cost of dissidence and dealing with external humiliation. They’re political ‘honour killings’ native to semi-fascist, patriarchal regimes.”