Iranian blogger and dissident Ruhollah Zam was executed by hanging on Saturday after months of begging for clemency, the Justice Ministry reported, confirmed a report by the IRNA news agency.
Zam was sentenced to death by a court in Tehran in June on charges of propaganda against the leadership in Iran with his website Amad News. He was also found guilty of inciting protests, some of which were violent.
The verdict had been confirmed this week by the country's top court.
The blogger had particularly condemned alleged electoral fraud and the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 2009 presidential election. He then fled to France via Malaysia.
Zam also conducted several interviews with Farsi-language broadcasters abroad, in which he meted out sharp criticism of the Iranian leadership.
According to media reports, the dissident was allegedly lured to neighbouring Iraq by Iranian security forces, arrested there late last year and brought to Iran. Since then, Zam has pleaded guilty in several court hearings and asked for forgiveness.
Germany and France condemned the execution.
"The Federal Government is horrified about the execution of the blogger Ruhollah Zam carried out today in Iran. Our sympathy goes out to his family and friends," the German Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
"We are shocked by the circumstances surrounding the conviction, particularly by the preceding kidnapping from abroad," the statement said.
The German government's position on the death penalty is clear, namely that it is a "cruel and inhumane form of punishment that we reject in all circumstances," the statement said. "We call upon Iran to respect the freedom of opinion of its citizens, to release all political prisoners and to refrain from handing down or carrying out further death penalties."
A French Foreign Ministry spokesman also expressed outrage and condemned the execution in the strongest terms, calling it a "serious attack on freedom of speech and freedom of the press" and a "barbaric and unacceptable act."
