A university lecturer with dual British and Australian nationality who was jailed in Iran for spying has been moved to a prison notorious for “gross human rights violations.”
Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an academic at the University of Melbourne, has been detained in Iran since 2018. She was found guilty of espionage last year and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
She has now been transferred from Tehran’s Evin Prison to Qarchak women’s prison, east of the capital, according to a spokesperson for the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
“Dr Moore-Gilbert’s case is one of the Australian Government’s highest priorities, including for our Embassy officials in Tehran,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement to CNN. “We are urgently seeking further consular access to her at this new location. We hold Iran responsible for Dr Moore-Gilbert’s safety and well-being.”
In December 2019, the US State Department determined that Qarchak Prison met the criteria for “gross human rights violations,” describing it as “an environment that enables rape and murder.”
Moore-Gilbert is a fellow and lecturer in Islamic Studies focusing on politics in the Arab Gulf states, according to her biography on the University of Melbourne’s website.
The website states that she graduated from the University of Cambridge in 2013 and completed her PhD at the University of Melbourne four years later. According to Australian state broadcaster ABC, she was in Iran to start a course in the city of Qom.