A welcome sign
The surprise announcement on Wednesday that Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a British-Australian academic behind bars in Iran since September 2018, was released by the Islamic Republic in a prisoner swap generated a wave of exuberance among the ill-fated scholar's friends and colleagues, and was also celebrated on social media by many Iranians who believed she was innocent to begin with.
Moore-Gilbert, a lecturer in Islamic studies at the University of Melbourne, was in Iran in 2018 to attend the seventh International Course on Shi'a Studies in the city of Qom, and was detained by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps at Tehran's international airport as she was leaving the country. She was tried in a revolutionary court and condemned to 10 years in prison on charges of conducting espionage for Israel.
Footage of the 33-year-old University of Cambridge alumna waiting in a lounge before being escorted to a van, looking deeply bewildered and traumatized, was released by Iran's state TV and quickly went viral on the global broadcasters.
In a note published shortly after she was set free, MooreGilbert wrote that she "came to Iran as a friend and with friendly intentions, and depart Iran with those sentiments not only still intact, but strengthened."
In what was clear testimony to her academic integrity, she acknowledged that she had been through a sad ordeal and faced injustices, but insisted her perceptions of the Iranian people were not spoiled: "I have nothing but respect, love and admiration for the great nation of Iran and its warm-hearted, generous and brave people. It is with bittersweet feelings that I depart your country, despite the injustices which I have been subjected to."
Few details are available as to the reasons she was arrested and then sentenced to a lengthy prison term on espionage charges. Like the majority of court cases in which foreign nationals are arraigned in Iran for acting against national security and collusion with "hostile governments," the particulars of her dossier have not been made available by the judiciary.
She had traveled to Iran on an invitation by the University of Religions and Denominations and Alzahra University, and it doesn't make sense to conceive she had been dispatched to Iran by Israel to collect sensitive information and then fly back in a span of only five days.
While in prison, Kylie MooreGilbert repeatedly complained of the unsanitary conditions of the ward she was kept in, her deteriorating psychological health and being deprived of medical furlough while the Covid-19 pandemic swept through Iran's overcrowded, squalid penitentiaries. The decision to release the young lecturer after serving 804 days in custody is definitely a propitious development, and can be construed as an indication that Iran is able to make pragmatic decisions at critical junctures.
But Kylie Moore-Gilbert is not the only foreign national incarcerated in Iran, and as I pen these words, Ahmad Reza Jalali, an IranianSwedish medical doctor, in jail since 2016 on espionage allegations, is facing impending execution.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is another dual national who was detained in April 2016 and is serving a five-year term for plotting to topple the Iranian government. As she is approaching the end of her prison sentence, a new set of accusations are being brought up against her, and it is likely that her days in captivity will be extended.
The Iranian-British charity worker is perhaps the most high-profile detainee in Iran, whose plight has been raised at the British Parliament a number of times. In March 2019, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office granted her diplomatic protection, which means the status of her case has been elevated to a dispute between two governments rather than being a consular matter. Her case is now a serious sticking point between the governments of Iran and UK.
Sharp-tongued, ardent detractors of the Islamic Republic claim Iran is engaged in a practice of state hostage-taking and imprisons foreign nationals or dual citizens with an eye to gaining concessions from other governments.