British-Iranian academic arrested in Tehran amid rising tensions

Iran has arrested a dual British-Iranian national amid rising tensions between the two countries.

Kameel Ahmady, a renowned anthropologist, was arrested by police in Tehran on Sunday on unspecified allegations.

Mr Ahmady, an Iranian Kurd who was born in the western city of Mahabad, was granted British citizenship in 1994 but had been living in Iran for the last 15 years.

His wife, Shafagh Rahmani, said on Tuesday night he had not been officially charged, but prosecutors at Evin prison said that he faces a series of charges related to “his activities”.

According to his Linkedin profile, he is "a scholar working in the field of social anthropology conducting research on topics related to local cultures, women and children, and the rights of minorities in the Middle East, with some work experience in Africa and the Far East.”

In 2015, he released a study suggesting tens of thousands of Iranian women have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM). Before Mr Ahmady's disclosure, Iran was not recognised as a country affected by the controversial practice.

Iran has pursued a campaign of detaining Iranian and dual nationals academics in recent years, the latest of which was in July when French-Iranian scholar Fariba Adelkhah was detained on unspecified charges.

Iran has since 2016 been holding another British-Iranian national, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, on charges of espionage. Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, believes she may be being used as leverage.

The Telegraph also revealed earlier this month that Iranian-Finnish King’s College London student Ana-Diamond, 24, was held in Evin prison for eight months that same year on charges of spying for the British government.

As tensions with Tehran escalate, the Islamic Republic is accused of using dual nationals as pawns in its standoff with the West.

Iran and the UK have been locked in a standoff over the fate of two seized tankers.

Gibraltar seized the Grace 1 supertanker on July 4 with the help of British Royal Marines on suspicion it was shipping oil to Syria in violation of EU sanctions.

Tehran retaliated two weeks later by impounding a British-flagged tanker while it was travelling through the Persian Gulf.

A court in Gibraltar is to decide the fate of the ship on Thursday, when an order for its detention lapses.

Talks between Iranian officials and the Foreign Office conducted in London last month failed to resolve the crisis.

Formally, it is trying to separate the issues of the tanker from the broader tensions with Iran over the nuclear deal.

Since the US pulled out of the 2015 accord last year, the UK and has been struggling to keep it alive while at the same time coming under pressure from Washington to take a harder line.