Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert Bio, Wiki

Dr Moore-Gilbert is a British-Australian Islamic studies instructor who has been held in Iran for nearly a year — in Evin Prison for flying a drone without a permit near Tehran, officials revealed.

Moore-Gilbert’s LinkedIn profile shows her first degree came in Middle Eastern Studies at Cambridge, where she also completed her Master of Arts. She completed her PhD in Gulf politics at the University of Melbourne in 2017.

In January 2018, she took up a post as a lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne, where she worked until her imprisonment in Iran, believed to have happened around October 2018. She has published writings on the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, authoritarian governance, and on the role of new media technologies in political activism, according to the site.

Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert Held in Iran Prison

Dr Moore-Gilbert has been held at Iran’s notoriously harsh Evin Prison for almost a year and has been slapped with a 10-year sentence, the Australian government told The Independent.

Iranian authorities have not made Moore-Gilbert’s charges public, but 10-year sentences usually apply to those convicted of spying, according to the report.

Dr Moore-Gilbert is held in the same prison as Two vloggers, Jolie King and her boyfriend Mark Firkin who were locked up in Iran in July 2019. The two were locked for allegedly flying a drone without a licence near the capital Tehran. Also in the prison is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a 41-year-old British-Iranian mum-of-one, held at the jail since 2016 on spying charges.

Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert Reaction

The Australian Government has said it is lobbying Tehran to ensure all three are appropriately cared for. Evin prison is the main detention centre for Iran’s political prisoners. In a statement released by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and obtained by The Independent, Moore-Gilbert’s family said they will continue to be in contact with the Australian government.

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