ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The leader of the Salafi movement in the Kurdistan Region, Abdullatif Ahmad, said on Wednesday that he will appeal a decision issued earlier in the day by the Region's higher education ministry to permanently dismiss him from teaching and public employment on sexual misconduct charges.
"This decision is not worth anything to me. Any decision not based on law, Sharia, and justice is completely worthless," Ahmad said in a recorded video, dismissing the allegations against him as orchestrated by a group hostile to him personally and ideologically.
He further demanded that his case be "transferred to the courts and anyone who has a complaint against me can step forward."
Ahmad leads the Salafi movement in the Kurdistan Region. In early June, a series of videos and voice recordings went viral across Kurdish social media allegedly showing Ahmad engaging in acts of sexual exploitation and harassment against his students.
The recordings were first published by a UK-based activist named Bilal Mahmood, widely known as Yaxi, who claimed they were provided by four of the Salafi figure's students at the University of Sulaimani's Department of Islamic Sciences.
A number of female students from the department also alleged that Ahmad had harassed them by phone and subsequently filed complaints against him.
The university accordingly formed a committee to investigate the matter and submitted its report to Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Education Minister Aram Qadir last week. Central to the investigation was verifying the authenticity of the recordings and determining whether they had been tampered with or generated using artificial intelligence.
Earlier on Wednesday, Qadir on Wednesday decided to permanently dismiss Ahmad from teaching and barred him from future employment as well as pension benefits - the harshest penalty imposed as a disciplinary action against a government employee.
"What is happening against me is because of my religious and patriotic stances," the Salafist cleric said in response, adding that he had sent letters to Qadir and the head of the university’s committee, explaining to them "that this is a plot."
"I begged them not to entertain this plot and to stop it," he said, adding that he told them "behind the curtain that there are major things at play" and that he "identified the group responsible” and has already filed a complaint against them, asking for their arrest.
