Academic held in Iran to go on hunger strike

A Melbourne academic jailed in Iran’s notorious Evin prison has sent a personal plea to Scott Morrison, begging him for help.

Kylie Moore-Gilbert. Picture: AFP

A Melbourne academic jailed in Iran’s notorious Evin prison has sent a personal plea to Scott Morrison, begging him to do “whatever it takes” to get her out.

In letters smuggled from the jail where she has languished for 15 months, Kylie Moore-Gilbert pleads with the Prime Minister to help her and reveals she is going on a hunger strike, refusing water as well as food.

Dr Moore-Gilbert revealed her distress in the two letters, written in the Tehran prison and seen by Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper.

“Please I beg of you to do whatever it takes to get me out,” she wrote. “I know that you are a religious man, and I ask that until that much longed for day of freedom arrives, you remember me and my family in your prayers.”

Dr Moore-Gilbert has been denied contact with her family for nine months except for a three-minute phone call to her father, the Herald Sun reported. The University of Melbourne ­Islamic studies expert was ­arrested when she checked in for a flight back to Australia after ­attending a conference in Iran in September last year.

It was revealed on Sunday that Dr Moore-Gilbert lost an appeal against her 10-year sentence. She has held five hunger strikes but a source said they were more concerned for her welfare this time as she planned to refuse food and water.

Dr Moore-Gilbert, who graduated dux of All Saints College in Bathurst, NSW, in 2005, has spent much of her sentence in solitary confinement. Her first of two letters was written in June but she was unable to get it out. The Cambridge University graduate and dual British citizen added a postscript this month.

“I have undertaken five hunger strikes as my only means to raise my voice, but to no avail. As predicted, I have now received a conviction of 10 years in prison, and my appeal court has failed,” she wrote.

“Over the past nine months I have been completely banned from any contact with my family, with the exception of a three-minute phone call, which was only granted after I took desperate measures which put my own life at risk. I beg of you, Prime Minister Morrison, to take immediate ­action, as my physical and mental health continues to deteriorate.”

West Australian couple Jolie King and Mark Firkin were arrested in Iran in August but released in October after talks with the Foreign Affairs Department.