Jailed Aussie’s plea for PM’s help in letters smuggled out of notorious Iran prison

An Australian academic jailed in Iran’s notorious Evin prison has smuggled letters out, pleading for Prime Minister Scott Morrison to help her get out and revealing she is starting a hunger strike.

Smuggled letters from Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who is jailed in Iran’s notorious Evin prison, reveal she will start a new hunger strike today (Christmas Eve).

Dr Moore-Gilbert, who has spent 15 months locked up as a political prisoner, pleads with Prime Minister Scott Morrison for help in the notes, seen by News Corp Australia.

“Please I beg of you to do whatever it takes to get me out,” she wrote.

“I know that you are a religious man, and I ask that until that much longed for day of freedom arrives, you remember me and my family in your prayers.”

The two letters written, inside the prison in Tehran, reveal Dr Moore-Gilbert’s distress.

She has been stripped of contact with her family for nine months except for a three-minute phone call with her father.

The University of Melbourne Islamic studies expert was arrested after she checked in to a flight back to Australia after attending a conference in Iran in September last year (2018), according to her letter.

One of the Iranians at the conference alerted Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to her presence.

News Corp Australia revealed on Sunday that Dr Moore-Gilbert had lost an appeal to her 10-year jail sentence.

Read the article by Stephen Drill in The Daily Telegraph.