Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a lecturer specialising in Islamic Studies at Melbourne University, is currently serving a 10 year sentence for espionage. The Cambridge-educated academic was arrested in 2018 at Tehran airport, as she was making her way back home after attending a conference. Ms Moore-Gilbert had been denounced to the intelligence arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps by a fellow academic and by a person she had interviewed for her research.
She was subsequently tried and convicted in secret and has been serving her sentence in Evin prison, often in conditions of extreme duress.
The Australian lecturer says she has been refused visits and phone calls, and has been held in an “extremely restrictive detention ward”.
She has described the charges against her as completely false and has been backed up in her denials by the Australian government.
In letters, smuggled from the prison and published in The Guardian and The Times, Ms Moore-Gilbert describes the harrowing experiences of her incarceration and its effects on her morale and mental health.
The Guardian says the letters were written by the Middle East expert to Iranian officials and span the period from June to December 2019.
In one letter to her “case manager”, she indignantly rejects an offer to become a regime spy.
Ms Moore-Gilbert writes: “”Please accept this letter as an official and definitive rejection of your offer to me to work with the intelligence branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
“I am not a spy. I have never been a spy and I have no interest to work for a spying organisation in any country.”
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“My situation here is even more difficult due to the ban on having any phone calls with my family.
“I worry a lot about their reactions to my verdict but I cannot talk to them. This is really inhumane.”
She continues to insist that she is innocent of all charges and accuses the Iranians of fabricating the evidence against her.
Australia’s Foreign Minister, Marise Payne, took the opportunity to raise the subject of Ms Gilbert-Moore’s imprisonment, when she met with her Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif at the global leadership conference in India this week.
She told journalists: “The government has been working extremely hard in relation to the ongoing detention of Kylie Moore-Gilbert.
“We don’t accept the charges on which she has been held and are concerned for her protection and the conditions under which she is held.”
The Australian government has historically enjoyed better relations with Iran than most of its western allies.
However, Australia’s staunch support of Donald Trump’s America has led to a deterioration in diplomatic relations, resulting in less leverage with Tehran.
Australia also continues to contribute troops to the US coalition in Iraq, which further complicates relations between the two states.