(Bloomberg) -- Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned the ambassadors of Germany and France after they denounced the Islamic Republic's execution of a dissident journalist, the semi-official Iranian Students' News Agency reported on Sunday.
Ruhollah Zam, who ran a Telegram channel that campaigned against Iran's leadership from his base in southern France, was hanged on Saturday morning after he was accused of inciting widespread unrest in late 2017 and convicted of “corruption on earth,” a capital offense in Iran.
France's ambassador, Philippe Thiebaud, also withdrew from a major conference focused on European investment in Iran, due to take place online from Dec. 14 to Dec. 16, in response to the execution, according to a tweet by the French embassy in Tehran.
In an emailed statement, the event's organizers, which include the Trade Promotion Organization of Iran and the U.N.-backed International Trade Centre, said the event had been postponed.
Death Sentence for Iranian Journalist Accused in 2017 Unrest
Zam, who settled in France in 2012 after fleeing Iran a few years earlier, was lured to Iraq last year as part of an Iranian intelligence operation. He was then captured in the city of Karbala and taken to Tehran where he was immediately imprisoned and put on trial, state media reported at the time.
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