Third Australian in Iran jail named as Melbourne University academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert

The family of a Melbourne University academic imprisoned in Iran have spoken of the ordeal.

Melbourne University lecturer Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert. Picture: Supplied

The third Australian detained alongside two travel bloggers in an Iranian jail has been named as a Melbourne University lecturer Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert.

According to Persian language station Manoto TV, Dr Gilbert, a specialist in Middle Eastern studies, has been in prison since 2018 and is serving a 10-year sentence on unspecified charges.

In a statement provided to The Weekend Australian, Dr Moore-Gilbert’s family said they were in close contact with the Australian government in a bid to secure her return.

“Our family thanks the Government and the University of Melbourne for their ongoing support at this distressing and sensitive time,” the family said.

“We believe that the best chance of securing Kylie’s safe return is through diplomatic channels.”

“We will not be making any further comment and would like to request that our privacy – and that of our wider family and friends – is respected at this time.”

The University of Melbourne confirmed it was also in close contact with the government and Dr Moore-Gilbert’s family over the matter, but would not elaborate on her situation.

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Breaking: Arrest of Dr. Kylie Moore-Gilbert in Iran

A source told me the third Australian-British imprisoned in Iran is Dr. Kylie Moore-Gilbert; a Cambridge-educated academic & Melbourne University Academic Fellow and Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Asia Institute. pic.twitter.com/SAhhbLzYrv

— Pouria Zeraati (@pouriazeraati) September 14, 2019

Foreign Minister Marise Payne this week expressed her “deep concern” at the detention of Dr Moore-Gilbert and Australian travel bloggers Jolie King and her boyfriend Mark Firkin, who are also in Evin prison following their arrest in July, allegedly for flying a drone near a military installation without a licence.

Ms King was initially terrified when she was moved from isolation into a communal ward, according to a British-Iranian prisoner who met her there. The young traveller was “very unsure of everyone and scared from her experience in solitary” confinement, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has told her family. She said being in solitary had “scared, disoriented and intimidated” Ms Jolie before she was moved.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a 41-year-old mother of one has been imprisoned in Evin since 2016 on spying charges. She told her husband Richard Ratcliffe Ms King had “a really fun sense of humour, and is very creative at making things with her hands,” according to The Times.

Ms King and Mr Firkin have also been cheered after being allowed to call their families from prison, the editor of Persian language broadcaster Manoto TV told The Weekend Australian. Pouria Zeraati said the pair were unlikely to get bail while awaiting trial and were in the process of finding a lawyer.

Jolie King was seized with her Australia boyfriend Mark Firkin, allegedly for flying a drone without a licence near Iran capital Tehran.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe noted that the blogger had become “more upbeat since she got sent some clothes,” her husband said. “People often have to stay in the clothes they were wearing when arrested for weeks when in solitary [confinement]. I think it was over a month for Nazanin.”

Mr Ratcliffe also had some advice for the families of Ms King and Mr Firkin: While it’s impossible to know what to expect, “The best advice someone gave to me was to remember that one day it would be suddenly over,” he said.

While the Australian authorities are taking the lead on trying to extract Ms King, Mr Firkin and Dr Moore-Gilbert in Evin, they are keeping in close contact with British diplomats who have been frustrated for years about Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s situation.

It is understood the UK Foreign Office has not wanted to publicise details about Ms King’s detention, even though she is a dual British-Australian national, because of the family’s wishes.

The publicity surrounding the Zachary-Ratcliffe case has hardened the Iranian response.

Evin has a longstanding reputation as an apparatus of political repression, with thousands of political dissidents ‘disappeared’ inside its walls. Built by the former Shah of Iran in 1972 to hold his most feared opponents, it was expanded after the ayatollahs took power in 1979 and became synonymous with torture and death. In the 1980s thousands, if not tens of thousands, of dissidents and members of a particularly hated rebel group — the People’s Mujahidin of Iran — were hanged there. Student protesters were also dragged into the prison, with many never seen again.

The horror of the prison’s regime was distilled in a description by author Azar Nafisi in her book Reading Lolita in Tehran, about the early years of the Islamic revolution. After some of Ms Nafisi’s young female students were executed inside Evin, she noted that the guards had got around the Islamic law prohibiting the execution of virgins by raping them first.

Today, many of Evin’s high-profile prisoners are long-term political opponents, and in some cases, political pawns of the regime.

Amnesty International has lashed the prison on numerous occasions for denying prisoners medical care and proper food, while rape and executions are still a feature of the jail.

A former prisoner told Sky News, how, after her arrest in 1982 she was raped and beaten on the soles of her feet during her incarceration. Marina Nemat, who spent two years in Evin, described it as a “black hole of evil”.

Two years ago Iranian authorities invited diplomats inside the prison in an attempt to persuade their visitors that Evin conformed to international standards.

It is believed Tehran is hoping to swap Ms King and Mr Firkin for an Iranian woman first arrested in Adelaide and detained in a US prison.

News of the pair comes as Foreign Minister Marise Payne made a face-to-face plea to her ­Iranian counterpart over their fate and that of the third ­Australian.

As part of a desperate diplomatic mission, Senator Payne flew to Bangladesh last week to meet Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on the sidelines of the Indian Ocean Conference.

Manoto TV first published the names of the bloggers on Twitter, reporting that the two were arrested “for flying a drone near the capital”.

“The family says this was a misunderstanding and Jolie King and her fiance, Mark Firkin, were unaware of the Iranian law which bans drone flights without a licence,” Pouria Zeraati added.