Kameel Ahmady a British-Iranian researcher and academic working on minorities was arrested at his home in Tehran on Sunday.
Kameel Ahmady, a British-Iranian dual national has been arrested in Iran
Kameel Ahmady is a social anthropologist. On August 11 security forces stormed his home in Tehran and seized documents including his personal items.
“My husband, Kameel Ahmady, has been arrested since Sunday. We have found out that a branch of prosecution office in Evin has issued a one-month arrest warrant for Kameel. We don’t have any information about the reason for arrest and charges.” Shafagh Rahmany, his wife wrote on her Instagram page on August 13. Evin Prison is the same prison that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been jailed for more than three years.
Kameel Ahmady is from Kurdish origin and was born in Mahabad. He is a living in Tehran and in recent years he has done researches on “female genital mutilation”, “child marriage” and “white marriage”. White marriage is a new trend in Iran in which couples live together without exchanging vows. This growing trend is not the favorite of the conservative and religious government of Iran.
According to his personal website, Kameel Ahamady was working on two new projects recently. One about the LGBT community of Iran and the other one was on “identity and ethnicity in Iran”.
All these areas of the researches are considered sensitive in Iran.
Kameel got British citizenship 25 years ago but in the past 15 years, he has been living in Iran according to his wife.
The arrest of Kameel Ahmady comes as the relation between UK and Iran has got tensed recently after a series of oil tankers seizures in the Persian Gulf and Gibraltar.
Kameel Ahmady’s arrest is the latest detention of dual-national by Iran. Several dual-nationals and foreign nationals are in Iranian jails on different charges including national security and espionage.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is another British-Iranian who was arrested and jailed in Iran. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation was sentenced to five years imprisonment in 2016. She has been accused of plotting against the Islamic Republic of Iran as well as other national security-related charges. She has denied all charges against her.
Aras Amiri, the British Council employee, who lived in London, was also detained in March 2018 during a family visit to Tehran. She was charged with “acting against national security” and sentenced to ten years in jail.
Earlier this year, the UK foreign office advised all dual nationals against all travel to Iran because of the risk of arbitrary detention.
Iran has arrested a number of foreign and dual nationals over the last four decades. In a recent report from Javaid Rehman, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Iran, Tehran’s ongoing detention of foreign and dual nationals has been identified as a problem.
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