Reuters: Iran Sentences Iranian-British Researcher to 9 Years in Prison
Reuters reported on Sunday, December 14, that a court in Iran has sentenced Kameel Ahmadi, a British-Iranian anthropologist, to 9 years in prison and a fine of 600,000 euros (approximately 544,000 pounds) on charges of conducting sabotage research activities.
According to Reuters, the news of this verdict has also been published by news media outlets and human rights groups.
Mr. Ahmadi, a Kurdish-Iranian researcher who had conducted research on controversial topics such as child marriage and female genital mutilation in Iran, was arrested and imprisoned in the summer of 2019, according to human rights groups, but was later released on bail after three months.
Following Mr. Ahmadi’s detention by the Iranian government, his wife told the Human Rights Center in New York that her husband was doing independent work and that his work was approved by the Iranian government.
Voice of America previously reported that Kameel Ahmadi won the Literature and Humanities Sciences Award from the Global Peace Foundation at George Washington University last year for his research and activities in the field of social harms, with an emphasis on “gender,” “children,” and “minorities.”
As an anthropologist and researcher, Kameel Ahmadi recently conducted interviews with Iranian media outlets and had told ISNA, among others, that based on his research there are approximately 14,000 informal waste collectors in the country and 89 percent of waste collectors are “illegal migrants.”
Human rights activists have accused Iran of detaining dozens of dual-nationality citizens for the purpose of using them as bargaining chips in negotiations with other countries.
The United States has repeatedly and in various cases condemned the hostage-taking and imprisonment of American citizens and nationals of other countries by the Islamic Republic, as well as the repeated and ongoing violations of their rights by Iran’s ruling regime.
Source: Voice of America
