Kameel Ahmady, an Iranian-British Kurdish researcher, has been sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of “collaboration with hostile governments” by Branch 15 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Tehran.
Amir Raisian, Ahmadi’s lawyer, twitted that “my client, Mr Kamil Ahmadi who is a researcher and anthropologist, was sentenced to eight years in prison by Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court on charges of” collaborating with a hostile government. We will appeal against this ruling.”.
Meanwhile, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that Kamell Ahmady had been sentenced to nine years in prison on charges of “communicating and cooperating with embassies in European countries in order to raise awareness among the people to increase the age of marriage in Iran, promoting and supporting homosexuality in addition to cooperating and communicating with the dissident and foreign media, sending a false report to the UN Human Rights Reporter against the Islamic Republic of Iran”. The report also stated that Kamal Ahmadi was fined for 600,000 Euros on charges of “illegal acquisition of property and involvement in subversive projects”.
Mr Ahmady was arrested by the forces of Islamic Republic Guard Corps (IRGC) in Tehran on August 11, 2019. He was released on a 500 million Tomans bail after about 100 days of temporary detention, one month of which was spent in solitary confinement. During this time he was interrogated in connection with his research activities and collaboration with non-governmental organizations.
Kameel Ahmady, from Mahabad and an Iranian-British citizen living in Tehran, has been conducting research on the topics of “female circumcision”, “childbearing” and “white marriage” in Iran during the past few years. Mr. Ahmadi’s major researches focus on issues such as female genital mutilation, child marriage, white marriage, and the situation of ethnic and sexual minorities in Iran.
Mr Ahmady was previously in charge of a group at the Iranian Sociological Association called «Child Sociology». His membership in the group has been revoked because several women have sued him for sexual harassment.
