Iran sentences Kameel Ahmady, British-Iranian anthropologist, to prison
Ahmady, who is ethnically Kurdish, had researched child marriage and female genital mutilation in Iran.
A British-Iranian social anthropologist who conducted research on child marriage, female genital mutilation and other sensitive subjects has been sentenced to prison in Iran, his lawyer and state media reported.
On Sunday, Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran sentenced Kameel Ahmady to nine years in prison and ordered him to pay a $727,000 fine, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. Ahmady’s lawyer, Amir Raesian, tweeted that his client was handed 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.
According to a translation of the Tasnim report from the Associated Press, Ahmady was charged over “cooperation with European embassies in support of promoting homosexuality, visiting Israel as a reporter for the BBC, cooperation and communication with foreign and hostile media, infiltration aimed at changing the law, and sending false reports about the country to the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Iran."
