Second British-Australian woman jailed in Iran is named as Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert
Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert from the University of Melbourne has been detained in Iran for a year The Br..
The British-Australian academic jailed in Iran has been named and pictured for the first time since she was detained a year ago.
Kylie Moore-Gilbert is a Cambridge-educated academic who is now a lecturer in Islamic Studies at Melbourne University.
She has been in Tehrans notorious Evin prison after reportedly being given a ten-year jail term for unknown charges.
It is believed she has been in solitary confinement for the last year, which former prisoners have described as mental torture.
Her plight emerged after bloggers Jolie King and Mark Firkin were detained 10 weeks ago over allegations they flew a drone without permission while travelling through the country.
Experts say all three people, as well as British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, are being kept as hostages by the regime.
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There are reports Iran wants to engage in prisoner swaps with the west.
Dr Moore-Gilbert specialises in Middle Eastern politics and has published work on the 2011 Arab uprisings and on authoritarian governments.
Her family released a statement through Australias Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, saying: Our family thanks the Government and the University of Melbourne for their ongoing support at this distressing and sensitive time.
We believe that the best chance of securing Kylies 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 Iranian authorities have not made public the charges against Dr Moore-Gilbert but 10 year jail terms are typically given to those convicted of spying.
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, from London, was arrested in 2016 as she visited her family in Iran alongside her young daughter Gabriella.
She was given a five-year jail term for spying, which she denies.
In April, Foreign Minister Zarif proposed swapping Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe for Negar Ghodskani, an Iranian woman in jail in the US.
Marina Nemat was thrown into Evin prison when she was just 16 years old after demonstrating against the oppressive policies of the Islamic government.
She spent more than two years in the notorious political prison where she was tortured and came very close to execution.
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She told Metro.co.uk that foreign prisoners are unlikely to be tortured because they will be used as bargaining chips.
Ms Nemat, who now writes about her experiences from her new home in Canada, continued: Evin prison is a place of cruelty.
The only reason the officials in the prison might hold back on foreigners is that they dont want to damage the hostage.
When they arrest foreigners, they arrest them as hostages. They havent committed any crime. They might say they are spies but thats just bogus.
The reality is, in every case, that they want to use them as hostages. They want something from the Australian and the British governments.