Influential UK MP lashes ‘hostage takers’ over detained academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert
Influential Tory MP sparks a diplomatic Twitter row with Iran over the continued detention of Melbourne academic.
An influential British Conservative MP has lashed Iran for their “hostage-taking’’ of Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert.
Tom Tugendhat, the Commons foreign affairs committee chairman has made the first significant political criticism of Iran in relation to the incarceration of Dr Moore-Gilbert, who was sentenced to a 10-year jail term in 2018 on spying charges.
The Australian revealed on Monday that Dr Moore-Gilbert has been moved from solitary confinement in Tehran’s Evin prison to the desert jail hellhole of Qarchak, outside the capital. She was able to make contact with Reza Khandan, the husband of fellow Evin detainee Nasrin Sotoudeh, to tell him of the transfer.
Dr Moore-Gilbert told him: “I can’t eat anything. I feel so very hopeless. I am so depressed.” She also spoke about being unable to make contact with her family in Australia because she is not allowed a phone card to make international calls.
Mr Tugendhat tweeted in response to a report about Dr Moore-Gilbert on Wednesday, saying: “Hostage-taking has no place in diplomacy. The world needs to realise what the Iranian government is doing and who is covering up mass human rights violations.’’
Hostage taking has no place in diplomacy. The world needs to realise what the Iranian government is doing and who is covering up mass human rights violations. @IRIMFA_EN https://t.co/6ovovLOzwJ
— Tom Tugendhat (@TomTugendhat) July 29, 2020
But the intervention of Mr Tugendhat drew swift condemnation from Iran’s ambassador to the UK, Hamid Baeidinejad, who accused him of a “level of hatred towards Tehran that was beyond imagination”.
Mr Baeidinejad insisted the former army officer’s military record in Afghanistan and Iraq had resulted in a “deep misconception” of Iran.
“He never stops attacking Iran and has deep misconception regarding Iran’s regional policies, which possibly was generated from his earlier association in the Army in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Mr Baeidinejad said.
بÙÛ Ø¢Ø¯Ù Ø§Ø¹Ø¶Ø§Û ÛÚ© Ù¾ÛÚ©Ø±ÙØ¯Ø ک٠در Ø¢ÙØ±ÛÙØ´ ز ÛÚ© Ú¯ÙÙØ±ÙØ¯Ø Ú٠عضÙÛ Ø¨Ù Ø¯Ø±Ø¯ Ø¢ÙØ±Ø¯ Ø±ÙØ²Ú¯Ø§Ø±Ø دگر عضÙÙØ§ را ÙÙ Ø§ÙØ¯ ÙØ±Ø§Ø±Ø ت٠کز Ù ØÙت دÛÚ¯Ø±Ø§Ù Ø¨Û ØºÙ ÛØ ÙØ´Ø§Ûد Ú©Ù ÙØ§Ù ت ÙÙÙØ¯ آد٠Û. https://t.co/WX8ZSoT40t
— Tom Tugendhat (@TomTugendhat) July 29, 2020
Later, state news agency IRNA quoted the Tehran prisons authority as saying: Dr Moore-Gilbert was in “perfect health” and would meet Canberra’s envoy in Tehran next week.
The statement denied the academic was physically ill and said the scheduled meeting with the Australian ambassador “was proof of the report being false”.
A diplomatic source confirmed that a meeting at Qarchak prison had been agreed for next week.
Moore-Gilbert was moved from Tehran’s Evin prison to Qarchak on Sunday, Hamshahri newspaper reported.
Dr Moore-Gilbert, who is in her early 30s, has dual Australian and British nationality. She grew up in Bathurst, NSW, and studied at Cambridge University before joining the University of Melbourne.
She was arrested in September 2018 when she was about to board a flight from Tehran back to Melbourne after being invited on a study tour in Iran. She was accused of acting suspiciously by a person she had interviewed for her studies.
In a letter smuggled out of Evin prison last year, Dr Moore-Gilbert wrote: “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”.
The Australian government said diplomats have been trying to see her in her new jail and that they held Iran responsible for Dr Moore-Gilbert’s safety and wellbeing.
“Dr Moore-Gilbert’s case is one of the Australian government’s highest priorities, including for our embassy officials in Tehran,’’ a representative from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.
Up until now the Australian government has taken a softly-softly approach to their negotiations with Iran regarding Dr Moore-Gilbert, but Mr Tugendhat’s outburst has marked a new strategy — at least from the British perspective.
Mr Tugendhat is influential in the Conservative party and has been instrumental in garnering significant backbencher support to force the Johnson government to reverse its acceptance of Huawei in the 5G telecommunications network.
He has already queried why Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have not been included on Britain’s new independent sanctions program, which freezes the assets of human rights abusers in the UK and also restricts their ability to travel.
He said the failure to include senior members of the Revolutionary Guards was a “striking omission’’.
It is understood because Dr Moore-Gilbert entered Iran on an Australian passport, Australian diplomats have been taking the lead in negotiations with Iran.
Britain has been in long talks with Iran about British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who was jailed for five years in 2016.
Additional reporting: AFP
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