Kamil Ahmadi is a British-Iranian researcher and anthropologist who focusses on regional cultures, ethnic minorities, children and child labour, gender, women and minority rights. He received his master's degree in social anthropology from the University of Kent in the United Kingdom.

Ahmadi's research publications, documentaries and visual ethnographies address a variety of topics and include eight books and three short documentaries on subjects such as female circumcision, child marriages, temporary marriages, white marriages i.e. informal marriages that allow couples to cohabitate, LGBT rights, issues relating to identity and ethnicity, children garbage scavengers in Tehran. Kamil Ahmadi has also conducted anthropological research on changes in identity among the Yazidis, honor killings, self-immolation and suicide, gender, children and empowerment.

In 2018, Ahmadi was awarded the Global Woman P.E.AC.E. Foundation Literature and Humanities Prize from George Washington University, Washington DC, for his research and activities on harmful traditional practices (HTP), female genital mutilation (FGM), gender, children and minorities.

On August 11, 2019, Ahmadi was arrested in Iran by agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) who had a warrant for his arrest. On November 18, 2019, after being imprisoned for 100 days and interrogated, Ahmadi was released from Evin Prison on bail for 500 million tomans until the end of legal proceedings against him.

According to a report published on the Mashregh News website, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, the reason for Ahmadi’s arrest was his research into “child brides” and “women’s rights” in Iran. The Islamic Republic sees these issues as crossing its "red lines" and numerous sociologists, anthropologists and researchers have been summoned to court and arrested for addressing and investigating these issues.

On December 13, 2020, Ahmadi was sentenced to nine years imprisonment and a fine of €600,000 by Branch 15 of the Islamic Revolutionary Courts of Tehran. The British government expressed serious concerns over Ahmadi's case and requested that the Iranian government provide further explanations on the matter.

According to the Islamic Revolutionary Courts’ verdict, which was later published on his personal website, Kamil Ahmadi was accused of the following charges: “collaboration with the hostile government of the United States against the Islamic Republic of Iran," “possession of a tear gas grenade,” “possession of one litre of foreign alcoholic drinks" and “possession of an electroshock weapon [a Taser].” Ahmadi stated that his prison sentence was used “a pretext to intimidate and apply pressure to a small number of activists who work as civil society activists and government employees.”

In an interview with BBC Persian, Kamil Ahmadi said that, during his time in prison, the chief prosecutor in his case told him “You’re very delicious” [as a subject to interrogate] because he was Kurdish, Sunni, a dual-national and a researcher studying sensitive issues. As such, he was subjected to intense psychological torture and mind games during his imprisonment.

Kamil Ahmadi later criticized his trial and legal proceedings, which were presided over by Judge Abolghassem Salavati in the Islamic Revolutionary Courts, as illegal and just a performance. Ahmadi said that one of the charges against him was his “work on the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda [for Sustainable Development] document.” The UN sustainable development agenda has become controversial in Iran – conservative media outlets and political figures in Iran have criticized it as a “conspiracy to promote [western] cultural influences.”

On February 3, 2021, Kamil Ahmadi announced that he had "illegally" left Iran by escaping on foot and crossing the Iranian border through the mountains. Ahmadi subsequently travelled to the United Kingdom. Speaking about his decision to leave Iran, Ahmadi wrote: “I decided to leave because I was unable to be indifferent to the fate of my only child … My stay in a system that is opposed to any dialogue and concession would have given them a chance to take another human being as a hostage.”