A British-Australian academic serving a 10-year sentence in Iran for espionage has been moved to a remote desert prison, notorious for violence and stricken with coronavirus, according to media reports. Cambridge-educated Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a lecturer at Melbourne University in Middle East politics, had been held in Tehran's Evin Prison for nearly two years, before her sudden move three days ago to Qarchak women's prison, south-east of Tehran. She strongly denies all the charges against her. She spent almost two years sleeping on the floor in a cell in the capital Tehran, according to a friend. She has been in solitary confinement and on several hunger strikes, and she is said to have been beaten for trying to comfort new prisoners by passing notes and writing to them on prison walls. Reza Khandan, the husband of imprisoned human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, said in a Facebook post that Moore-Gilbert was in "a very bad condition," according to BBC. He wrote that she had told him: "I can't eat anything, I don't know, I'm so disappointed. I'm so very depressed." In letters smuggled out of Tehran's Evin prison in January, the lecturer said she had "never been a spy" and feared for her mental health. She said she had rejected an offer from Iran to become a spy. "I am not a spy. I have never been a spy, and I have no interest to work for a spying organization in any country." She also said she feared her health had "deteriorated significantly". "I think I am in the midst of a serious psychological problem," she wrote, worsened by "the ban on having any phone calls with my family". Moore-Gilbert remains adamant that she is "an innocent woman... imprisoned for a crime I have not committed". The academic was traveling on an Australian passport and was detained at Tehran airport in 2018 as she tried to leave following a conference. She was tried in secret last year for espionage. — Agencies
