Kylie Moore-Gilbert is the author of the remarkable memoir The Uncaged Sky, which details the two years and three months she spent as a political prisoner in Iran. An expert in Middle East history and politics, Kylie travelled to Iran to take part in an academic conference, only to face arrest at the airport on her way home to Australia. Interrogated for months by Iran’s feared Revolutionary Guards, Kylie was ultimately convicted of espionage in a shadowy trial presided over by the country’s most notorious judge, and received a ten year prison sentence.
Held for a year in solitary confinement, Kylie was pushed to her limits by extreme physical and psychological deprivation. Her only lifeline was the covert friendships she made with other inmates inside Tehran’s Evin prison, whom she communicated with through air conditioning vents and by hiding secret letters in an outdoor exercise yard. To survive, Kylie began to fight back. Multiple hunger strikes, co-ordinated protests and a daring escape attempt led to her transfer to an isolated desert prison called Qarchak to live among convicted criminals. On 25 November 2020, after more than two years of struggle, Kylie was finally released in a high-stakes three-nation prisoner-swap deal, laying bare the complex game of global politics in which she had become a valuable pawn.
Kylie Moore-Gilbert has authored several influential academic papers and has contributed expert commentary to a number of media outlets, including the ABC, Sky News, SBS, the New Daily, the Age, the Australian, the National, WHO magazine, and Iran International. In addition, Kylie has provided advice to Australian government agencies and the Australian Defence Forces, and has lent her voice to a variety of human rights initiatives, including as a speaker to the 2021 Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy and as a board member of Hostage Aid Worldwide. Following her release from prison, Kylie has been a vocal advocate for human and women’s rights in Iran, and has campaigned in support of other victims of arbitrary detention around the world.
