A number of women have accused a leading British-Iranian anthropologist who recently fled Iran of being a sexual predator who may not be allowed to work with women or with the vulnerable groups focused in his research not.
Camel Ahmady, known for working on child marriages, female genital mutilation and LGBT communities in Iran, denies allegations of sexual assault and harassment, which led to his suspension from the Iranian Sociology Association.
But in a closely removed post on social media in which he addresses the accusations, he apologizes for ‘mistakes’ in the workplace and that he ‘hurt people with my relaxed attitude towards relationships’.
Four women separately claimed to the Guardian that he had assaulted them, and others made allegations of repeated sexual harassment.
Friends and colleagues of the women support their reports, saying they were told of three of the alleged assaults and several cases of alleged harassment before survivors released their stories.
The women spoke to the Guardian after Ahmady, who was recently sentenced to almost a decade in prison on charges of non-national security in Iran, skipped bail, fled the country and conducted several media interviews in the UK , among others in the Guardian and a heroic story of his escape from the clutches of a cruel regime.
They say they are afraid that other women may be in danger if he starts researching again. Although he cannot return to Iran, many of the issues he studies affect cross-border communities in the region, where he can continue to work.
‘When I heard about his other [alleged] victims, and the fact that they are largely, if not completely ignored, I could no longer bottle it up, ”said one woman, speaking for the first time in public about her experience.
‘Every thing I know [Ahmady] make their testimonies credible. He is a predator and a serial abuser. I’m so scared he’ll get other opportunities to work with vulnerable women and hurt them like he hurt me. ”
Ahmady said in a statement that the allegations were “unfounded defamation” organized by professional rivals and the Iranian state in an attempt to smear him and undermine his work.
He also said that two accused were in a similar relationship with him. He did not say which one or how he identified it from anonymous accounts.
Some of the allegations were first made public last year when the global #MeToo movement found voice in Iran in the outpouring of accusations against prominent figures, including Ahmady. At least seven allegations against him were published anonymously on social media accounts in August and September last year.
This led to an investigation by the Iranian Sociological Association, which suspended its membership and terminated its role as secretary of the Child Sociology Study Group, after finding that ‘abuse of power was at least’.
“(His) conduct has led to the sexual abuse of several young researchers and violated codes of ethics that govern scientific and research activities,” the group, which has no political affiliation, said in the statement.
Ahmady said the allegations had not been tested in court, describing it as part of a campaign to silence my voice, involving Iranian security forces as well as personal enemies in academia.
“Since my escape from Iran, competing individuals and groups have focused on me with the sole intention of destroying me, my research, as well as my professional and personal status,” he said in the statement, which did not provide any specific details of the allegations.
“The press is now being manipulated by them and those who are afraid of them, and those who want to displace me as a scholar in my field.”
One woman with whom the Guardian spoke described accusations of serious assault that she said took place outside Iran more than 15 years ago. The others all outlined alleged attacks that they say took place while he was doing fieldwork in Iran over the past decade.
Golshan * says she was nervous when Ahmady started a sexually explicit conversation during lunch on her first day as a researcher, and then on her second day tried to present her lemonade with alcohol.
She worked for a man she admired, who was on a self-proclaimed mission to “protect the defenseless”, so it never occurred to her that she would run a risk. She says she only understood when it was too late, after he led her to an empty apartment for what she thought was a work meeting, locked the door and took out the key. She was a college student, about 36 hours into her first job.
‘When I found out what’s going on, it was really too late, there was no way out of that building. “He was drunk and I did not really fight back because I thought he was going to hurt me,” she claims.
In a statement posted by Ahmady on social media shortly after the first allegations surfaced last year, he admitted ‘mistakes’ and apologized to ‘anyone I have ever hurt’, but said all his sexual relationships were consensual.
‘There are big differences between someone who hurts by accident, and the rape, abuse and coercion of a person in a relationship without consent. “I want to say unequivocally that I am not a rapist or an abusive person,” he said.
He claimed in the same statement that cultural differences and his ‘relaxed attitude’ led to accusations of inappropriate behavior.
“I now accept all justified criticism, especially in cases where I did not have the correct understanding of the culture and did not follow the right social protocols, due to my different views on relationships and relaxed attitude in the workplace.”
The women who carry out the assault, and others who have worked with him, suggest that this argument is well known. Ahmady often made sexual jokes, leading the discussion to sexually explicit topics and asking penetrating questions about their sex lives, they claim.
According to several of them, he said that feminists should support sexual liberation if they protest, and insisted that the sexualized conversations reflect his modernity. When women resisted his sexual advances, he mocked them for being ‘conservative’.
One woman described her shock when Ahmady excused himself to go to the bathroom during a work meeting she thought and came forward naked again.
“He started laughing and said ‘what are you afraid of, it’s something really natural, if you’re afraid of me when I’m naked, it means you’re conservative, provincial and petty,’ she claimed. ‘Then he said’ if you want to be a real feminist and resolve your contradictions in your mind, you have to accept to look at me when I’m naked. ‘
Samaneh Savadi, a gender equality activist in the UK, said she had received threats from Ahmady’s Twitter and WhatsApp accounts after linking him to an anonymous allegation against ‘KA’ on social media.
At the time, Ahmady was facing charges of national security by collaborating with a ‘hostile state power’ in his research projects. He described the Iranian state as ideological in relation to its work on sensitive issues.
Yet the messages to Savadi suggested that he would tell the security forces details about the accuser and her work in one of these sensitive areas, which could lead to charges from her if the post is not removed.
“In my previous interrogation, they asked me about her,” reads the message, which indicates that he recognizes the incident and knows the woman’s identity, although her report is described as ‘incomplete’.
‘Now I’m in a very difficult situation. If I decide to tell them the truth, it’s going to hurt us all. Would you please delete the message before it goes viral and causes trouble for all of us? We can also talk tomorrow. Thank you.”
Among the activist and research communities where he has worked, anger over the allegations is exacerbated by rejection of the proposal that he exploits women and idealism of young women to create situations where abuse can occur.
“He used the confidence of these young women who are idealists … they thought of working with him as a way to advance their broader cause of women’s rights,” claims Sussan Tahmasebi, a leading women’s rights activist. activist. “His access to vulnerable women, as a scholar concerned about the well – being of women and their empowerment, must end.”
It may also have the potential to put research back in critical areas. Negative stereotypes about feminists and activists can make it difficult to gain the trust of conservative communities, such as those that practice FGM and child marriage.
The allegations against Ahamdy could amplify the worst of these, Savadi said. This can lead to the access that others need to do essential research being cut off in the future.
“We trusted him to do work on a very sensitive subject, and he betrayed us all,” she said. “And I wonder: did he choose these specific topics to build a relationship with women, and then benefit from it?”
Another woman who worked with Ahmady said she did not see sexual violence, but that they ended their professional relationship because she was behaving inappropriately.
She claims it includes language use with a lot of sexualized use, alcohol and hashish, and sexual relationships with young researchers, as she has viewed abuse of power in a work environment.
She also claims that, despite describing himself as committed to social issues, he has repeatedly failed to fully recognize female partners for their contribution to his work.
Ahmady said he would be happy to have the allegations tested by a jury of his peers. There is little chance that he would be tried in Iran, even if he had not fled; the women who claimed assault there said they did not feel they could file complaints within the Iranian legal system.
Iran punishes abuse of sexual relations outside of marriage, so if rape victims report assault but are not believed by authorities, they can be prosecuted themselves. And when a case goes to court, the mandatory punishment for convicted rapists is execution, which burdens the survivors seeking justice heavily.
There is a pattern of behavior about alleged attacks in Iran described by survivors to the Guardian. They all allege that Ahmady targeted young women he worked with.
They claim he would design situations if he were alone with the women, under the pretext of meeting for work. They expected to be part of a group, but arrived there to track down only Ahmady. Several said he offered drugs that were illegal in Iran, including alcohol or hashish, or misled them into consuming them.
Most of the women worked with Ahmady for a period of time after experiencing assault or harassment because there were few other professional options available in the small and sensitive field where they worked.
They said they tried to warn other women where they could, but part of the reason they made the difficult decision to tell their stories in public, with the danger of being identified, was to to help protect.
“What can make my pain moderate is that even at least one person believes what has been done to me and that he can no longer do such a thing to another woman,” said one prosecutor.
* Not their real names.