A British-Iranian academic sentenced to more than nine years in jail in Iran for conspiring with “hostile state powers” has escaped through the mountains of the Kurdish north and come to London.
Kameel Ahmady, a social anthropologist who has researched female genital mutilation, escaped from Iran in December while on bail pending his appeal against his sentence. In addition to his jail sentence he was fined more than $AU892,000.
Ahmady, who is Kurdish, said he had struggled with the decision to escape for a long time before concluding he had little chance of winning his appeal. It was rejected in absentia by the court on Monday but until he broke cover on Wednesday Ahmady said that he did not know whether Iranian authorities were aware of his escape.
“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 wrote in an account of his escape. “But those in Iran who have an iron fist left me no option but to pack my bag for my decisive journey.”
Ahmady escaped across the fortified border with Turkey carrying only his research materials. “Kurds are known to have no friends but mountains,” he wrote. “On the night of my departure, with no lantern to light my path but the white snow, I realised again that the mountains were giving me a shelter and aiding me to start a new beginning with even stronger determination.”
Read the article by Catherine Philp in The Australian.