Kameel Ahmady

Kameel Ahmady
کامیل احمدی
Born	Naghadeh, Iran
Nationality	British, Iranian
Other names	کامیل احمدی
Occupation	Academic, Scholar and Anthropologist
Years active	15 years
Known for	Research and social anthropology in the areas of gender, children, ethnic minorities and child labour

Kameel Ahmady is a British-Kurdish scholar working in the field of social anthropology, with a particular focus on gender, children, ethnic minorities, and child labour in Iran.

Personal life and education[]

Ahmady was born in the multicultural town of Naghadeh and has been a British citizen since the 1990s.^[1] He is an anthropologist who studied at the University of Kent.

Mr Ahmady parents sent him to Britain when he was 18 for his education. He remained there many years, studying at the University of Kent and other UK universities.^[2] Before going abroad he was educated under the Shah's system, the Kurdish education system, and the Islamic Revolution's educational system.^[3]

He studied economic environment and publishing at University of Communication in London and social and visual anthropology at university of Kent in Canterbury.^[4]

Research[]

In 2013, Ahmady undertook the first comprehensive study of female genital mutilation in Iran.^[5] In 2009 he also published a travel guidebook for the Kurdish regions of Turkey.^[1][6]

Ahmady is also known for his country-wide research on early child marriage “An Echo of Silence”,^[7] which drew attention from the public and lawmakers to change the age of marriage in Iran, which is currently 13 for girls (with the permission of the court and the guardian, this can go down to 9 years) and 15 for boys, a move which was stopped by hardliners in the early stages in Parliament.

His research focuses on HTP so called Harmful Tradition practices such as early child marriage (ECM),^[8] female genital mutilation (FGM),^[9] sexuality and LGB^[10] along with child labor and ethnicity. His research on ECM^[11] brought him to the attention of the authorities because they believed he campaigned to raise the age at which girls can marry, which is currently set at 13 years old.^[12] He has also researched and written about white marriage (cohabitation), deprivation among the homosexual community, child poverty, identity and ethnicity, multiculturalism and modernity in the Middle East and other parts of the world.^[13]

Detention and sentence in Iran[]

In mid-August 2019, after he returned from a human rights conference in Ethiopia, a man knocked on his door claiming to be a postman and when the door was opened, 16 Revolutionary Guards stormed in and arrested him. At the time Ahmady was working as an anthropologist in the field in Tehran. According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, Ahmady's home and car were searched by security officials, and some of his belongings were confiscated.He was held for three months in the notorious Evin Prison, where many academics and dissidents have been held, including a spell in solitary confinement where he was interrogated by the Revolutionary Guard. KHRN also reported that Ahmady had been working on two studies before he arrested, into LGBT communities and identity and ethnicity in Iran.^[14][15]

Ahmady's family told Radio Farda (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) that prosecutors refused to tell them what he was charged with after he had been taken to Evin Prison.^[16] In September, Radio Farda reported that Ahmady's detention had been extended by another month.^[17] Ahmady was released in November 2019 on bail of five billion rials, or about $40,000.^[1]

On 13 December 2020, Reuters and other news agencies reported that judge Abolqasem Salavati, the head of the 15th branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran, had handed a nine-year jail sentence to British-Iranian anthropologist Kameel Ahmady, after convicting him of conducting “subversive” research work. Ahmady was also fined 600,000 euros ($727,000). The Iranian authorities said he had been carrying out research and accused him of seeking to topple Iran’s Islamic government through so-called "Soft subversion or Soft overthrow(ing)". The Tasnim news agency, which is linked to Iran's hardliners and Revolutionary guards, said he was also accused of seeking "cultural changes" related to gender and children, and that he had allegedly been in contact with foreign media and with the embassies of European countries with the aim of "promoting homosexuality" in Iran referring to his research "The Forbidden Tale: A Comprehensive Research Study on LGB of Iran". He was also convicted of sending false reports about the country to the UN's special rapporteur on human rights in Iran as well as infiltration aimed at changing the marriage law by increasing the age marriage of children with help of two women ex-MP and support from the office of The Vice Presidency for Women & Family Affairs. The current age of marriage for girls is 13 (with permission from the guardian and the court that can go down to 9 years of old) and 15 for boys.^[18] In media interviews later on Ahmady told The Guardian that the judge in his trial, Abolqasem Salavati, accused him of taking courses at universities where “subversive institutes and centres relevant to spying services organised these courses” and that by lobbying Iranian MPs on raising the age of child marriage, he was seeking to undermine Iran. According to Salavati’s verdict at his trial, he was accused of “acting as a senior expert in sociology and anthropology, directing the propagation of Western principles and weakening Sharia/lawful rules and fundamentals in the field of family and marriage, and promoting the necessity to adopt Western and humanist values”.^[19]

Ahmady’s lawyer, Amir Raesian, said his client had received an eight-year sentence for “collaborating with a hostile government”. “We will present an appeal request against this ruling and we are still hopeful,” Raesian said on Twitter.^[20] Ahmady stated on Twitter and Facebook that he had been denied access to a lawyer during his detention. "Contrary to all legal analysis and #hope for fair judgment, I was sentenced to 9 years and 3 months. During my last year 100 days of detention and extrajudicial interrogation without access to a lawyer, and this sentence was issued by judge Salavati after two non-expert court hearings in a process full of legal flaws."^[21]

The case has been compared to other British-Iranian dual nationals such as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who were arrested during the 2010s, similarly under apparently dubious grounds.^[22]

Escape[]

At some point in January 2021, Ahmady escaped while on bail in Iran. After nearly 100 days in Evin prison, including time in solitary confinement, he decided to flee Iran, crossing the mountainous northwest border using smuggling routes. During an interview with The Guardian newspaper in which he announced his escape, he alleged that 'the regime was opposed to his work on FGM and early child marriage' and that he was arrested in part as a response to the British government's seizure of an Iranian ship.^[23]

On 1 February 2021 Iran formally rejected Ahmady's appeal in absentia; it is not clear whether the courts were aware at the time that Ahmady had successfully escaped the country.^[22]

Once he arrived in London he broke his escape by speaking to BBC^[24] and UK channel 4 to tell his story.^[25] Kameel Ahmady said his decision to jump bail and escape was based on the fear that he if did not get out, he would be stuck in prison for nine years and not be able to see his son until he was 15. But it was a very hard and difficult decision. “It was a move I had to make under enormous pressure without many options, although I had always felt a strong responsibility to stay on and continue my work,” he says in a post on his website.^[26] “I knew that my departure would take me far away from the location of my mission and my field of work. It would mean leaving behind whatever I have achieved until now.” He packed a bag with a shaving kit, a few books, a laptop and a pair of pyjamas. “That’s all I had on me, and warm clothes, because I knew I had to smuggle myself out of the train on the mountain,” he told the BBC.^[27] He said the escape attempt was “very cold, very long, very dark and very scary”. He said: I had to leave everything behind, everything I loved, I worked for, all my human connections. At the same time I was so scared [that] if I got arrested I would have been put back before the judge and God knows what other scenarios I would be faced with.” Before his decision to flee, he had faced restrictions of his presence in seminars and universities, cancelling of permissions for the publication of new books and the elimination of his essays from newspapers, journals and scientific and academic websites. He told in an interview: “At one level I knew I was in trouble. There was a time in prison when my chief interrogator came down the corridor – I knew it was him from the sound of his steps – and he was smacking his lips. He said, ‘Kameel you are delicious. First you are a Kurd, second thing you come from Sunni background, most importantly you are British and researching sensitive subjects. We can bargain with you. You know how it works.’” “The most painful of all was labelling me as an infiltrator.^[28] After news of Ahmady's escape to UK some people tweeted and criticized Guardian newspaper and the journalist whom reported his escape saying he failed to mention that he was accused of sexual misconduct while working in Iran including being in relationship with female assistants alleging improper behaviour.^[29] This led to anonymous women giving their account to the Guardian accusing him abuse and harassments, allegations that originally published in Iran in a feminist Instagram page in Sep 2020 and 48 hours before Ahmady’s court appearance at the revolutionary court .^[30] Allegations that Ahmady says are deliberate slander, baseless and deliberately organised .^[31] In the wake of these accusations, Ahmady issued a statement in his Instagram page saying that he deny any of such allegations but welcome criticism on himself for not fully understanding the importance of power relations at work and apologised for any mistakes or hurting anyone due to what he said was my relaxed attitude and different views toward relationships. He pointed out that he is ready to be taken to court or in case there are any doubts over not receiving fair judgment for women in Iranian courts he can come before a civil court or civil society formed jury.^[32] Allegations that Ahmady says are deliberate slander, baseless and deliberately organised .^[33] In his respond to the Guardian report he since my escape from Iran, rival individuals and groups have been brought to bear upon me with the sole intention of destroying me, my research, as well as my professional and personal standing but this determent him even more to carry and the same time to learn. He added, these accusations have never been legally cross-examined. I am saddened that some people have used their gender and even themselves as tools to weaken my scholarly research and personal position .^[34] At the time, the Iranian Sociological Association revoked him from his voluntary membership secretary of the association subgroup “Sociology of Children” group,^[35] stating that based on Mr Ahmady’s Statement there were some evidence abused of power and violated research ethics. In response Kameel Ahmady told the BBC Persian that he stepped down from his position prior to their decision and he was not aware or was not asked about the allegations and believe their decision is unfair, unusual and judgment before arbitration.^[36] Later on an internal investigation was lunch by four subgroup directors in to the sociological association handling his removal and found some serious irregularities and abuse of the association’s rules and constitution. The report concluded that Ahmady never been contacted or asked about the allegations and the committee’s decision where based on anonymous accounts from the social media and they were pressured and rushed to such decision.^[37]

See also[]

• Iran–United Kingdom relations
• List of foreign nationals detained in Iran
• MeToo movement

References[]

External links[]

• Kameel Ahmady website
• Kameel Ahmady on Instagram
• Kameel Ahmady on ResearchGate
• Kameel Ahmady on LinkedIn

Articles

• hilaryburrage.com
• www.theguardian.com