Iran releases British-Iranian academic on bail

Tehran, Nov 21 (AFP) A British-Iranian anthropologist held in Iran for three months has been released on bail, his wife told state news agency IRNA on Wednesday. "Kameel Ahmady was released on Sunday evening on a 500 million (toman, USD 42,000) bail after three months of temporary detention," IRNA quoted Shafagh Rahmani as saying.

Iran confirmed Ahmady's arrest in October, less than three months after the detention of Franco-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah was publicised. French anthropologist Christian Bromberger wrote in August that Ahmady was "recently arrested", in an article published on the French edition of The Conversation website.

Author of a book in English titled "In the Name of Tradition: Female Genital Mutilation in Iran", Ahmady holds dual British and Iranian citizenship, according to Bromberger, himself an Iran specialist. IRNA said Ahmady had researched and published books on "child marriage, white marriage (unmarried cohabitation), child labour in Tehran as well as identity and ethnicity in Iran."

Ahmady is subject to a "preliminary investigation" on suspicion of "links to foreign countries and institutes affiliated with foreign (intelligence) services," said judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili in a press conference in October. On 15 July, French authorities announced Adelkhah had been arrested in Iran. Esmaili confirmed her arrest the next day.

A specialist in Shiite Islam, Adelkhah is the research director at the Centre for International Studies and Research at Sciences Po University in Paris. Roland Marchal, a colleague of Adelkhah and a researcher at Sciences Po in Paris, was also arrested in June and accused of "collusion against national security", according to his lawyer Saeed Dehghan. (AFP) IND

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)