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Iran has executed a journalist who was accused of using a messaging app to stir up dissent, BBC News reports.

Ruhollah Zam was hanged on Saturday after the supreme court upheld the death sentence against him, state television reported.

It is unclear how Zam, who had been living in exile in France, came to be arrested. He was reportedly detained after travelling to Iraq last year.

He ran the Amadnews website, a popular anti-government forum.

Iran accused Amadnews of inciting the nationwide protests of 2017-18.

The network, which had more than a million followers on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, shared videos of protests and damaging information about Iranian officials.

It was shut down by the Iranian government, but later reopened under a different name.

Zam, the son of reformist cleric Mohammad Ali Zam, was convicted of "corruption on earth" - one of the country's most serious offences - earlier this year.

However, human rights organisation Amnesty International said he had been the victim of "an unfair trial that relied on forced confessions".

Earlier this week, the French foreign ministry described the decision to uphold Zam's death sentence as "a serious attack on freedom of expression and freedom of the press in Iran", according to Reuters news agency.