Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert has been named as the British-Australian academic held in Iran’s notorious Evin prison.
The University of Melbourne lecturer has been held in Iran since October 2018 on unknown charges.
It is believed she has been held in solitary confinement the entire time and faces up to 10 years in jail.
British-Australian travel blogger Jolie King, and her Australian boyfriend Mark Firkin, both from Perth, have been held in the same jail without charge for about ten weeks.
Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert (pictured) has been named as the British-Australian academic held in Iran ‘s notorious Evin prison
British-Australian travel bloggers Jolie King, and her Australian boyfriend Mark Firkin, both from Perth, have been held in the same jail without charge for about ten weeks
The University of Melbourne lecturer is believed to have been imprisoned in Iran since October 2018, and held in solitary confinement the entire time
Dr Moore-Gilbert’s identity was made public on Saturday by a Persian TV station.
Editor in chief of Manoto TV, Pouria Zeraati, took to Twitter on Saturday morning Australian time to reveal Dr Moore-Gilbert’s identity.
‘She was arrested in summer 2018 & currently serving 10 years’ jail sentence based on unknown charges, issued by Islamic Republic judiciary,’ he wrote on Twitter.
‘Similar to Jolie King and Mark Firkin’s case, it is not clear what the Islamic Republic wants out of this arrest, as no-one from the Judiciary or Intelligence Services has made any comment on this.’
Dr Moore-Gilbert’s family have confirmed her identity through a statement released by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Australia.
‘We have been and continue to be in close contact with the Australian Government,’ the family said in the statement.
‘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 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.’
Dr Moore-Gilbert’s identity was made public on Saturday by a Persian language blog
Dr Moore-Gilbert’s family have confirmed her identity through a statement released by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Australia
The University of Melbourne also issued statement saying they are in close contact with the Australian Government and Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert’s family.
‘We believe that the best chance of securing Kylie’s safe return is through diplomatic channels,’ it said.
‘This is a sensitive matter and the University will not be providing further comment.’
Dr Moore-Gilbert grew up in Bathurst, in New South Wales, where she went to college before travelling to the UK as an undergraduate student of the Middle East at Cambridge.
While there in 2011, as a member of the Cambridge Union, she met guest speaker Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
Friends have told of an intelligent and caring young woman with a strong sense of justice and who lived for her work as an expert in Middle East affairs.
Dr Moore-Gilbert was described as shy and measured with her words and friends do not understand how she came to be in her current predicament.
On the University of Melbourne’s website, she is listed as an expert in Islamic Studies, Middle Eastern History and Middle Eastern Studies.
Her most recent research was looking into ‘Iran’s relationship with Bahrain’s Shi’a after the Arab Uprisings’.
Dr Moore-Gilbert was described as shy and measured with her words and friends do not understand how she came to be in her current predicament
Bloggers, teachers and academics have been thrown inside its squalid cells after being accused of questionable crimes (pictured: Evin Prison)
Jolie King and her boyfriend Mark Firkin (pictured together) have been held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison without charge for around ten weeks
The young academic is being held in the same facility as British-Australian travel blogger Jolie King, and her Australian boyfriend Mark Firkin.
Miss King, who was born in New South Wales, and her boyfriend travelled to Iran as part of a round-the-world trip with her boyfriend, which they chose to document online.
The pair had been living together in Perth where he worked as a construction manager and she held a job as a building designer before deciding to escape the rat-race in 2017 for a life of adventure on the road.
They converted a Toyota Landcruiser Troopcarrier into a makeshift camper van and departed Perth with a final destination of London.
Their travels took them across Australia, through Indonesia and Malaysia, into Thailand, Cambodia and Nepal, then to India, Pakistan and then Kyrgyzstan, where their last social media updates were posted in June this year.
It is thought the pair then drove into Iran and made their way towards Tehran where they were arrested in early July.
Having posted near-weekly updates for almost two years, their social media feeds suddenly fell silent as their 19,000 followers flooded their feeds with messages asking for news of their whereabouts.
Evin prison is located in the Evin neighborhood of Tehran, Iran. It is notable as the primary site for the housing of Iran’s political prisoners since 1972
The three Australians are being held in Evin prison, a notorious Iranian jail where high-profile political detainees are kept while they are interrogated (pictured a prison guard at Evin prison)
Former inmates of Evin (pictured) have described the frequent use of torture by sadistic guards while witnessing people being hanged in the jail’s central courtyard
Earlier this week, reports emerged that two British-Australian women had been arrested in Iran, leading to the identification of one of them as Miss King.
Her family confirmed the detention, saying it was the result of a ‘misunderstanding’ and that she was unaware of rules around flying drones in Iran.
The families of both Miss King and Mr Firkin then issued a joint statement, saying: ‘Our families hope to see Mark and Jolie safely home as soon as possible.’
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said she met last week with her Iranian counterpart, seeking to secure release of three citizens held by Tehran.
While the detentions were confirmed in recent days, Payne said late on Thursday the Australian government had been working on securing the release of the three for more than a week.
Payne said she travelled to Bangladesh last week to meet Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif to discuss the detention of the three people.
Payne declined to reveal specific details of the talks.
‘The government has been making efforts to ensure they are treated fairly, humanely and in accordance with international norms,’ Payne told the Australian senate.
Iranian women inmates sit at their cell in the infamous Evin jail, north of Tehran, on June 13, 2006
Iranian prisoners work in a kitchen in the Evin prison in Tehran in 2006. There are so many intellectuals banged up there that the prison has been nicknamed Evin University