Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert: surviving 804 days in an Iranian prison

The 12th of September 2018 is a day Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert will never forget. The Australian-British academic had travelled to Iran to attend a seminar on Shia Islam and was about to return to Australia when she was suddenly detained by the feared Islamic Revolutionary Guards at the airport gate in Tehran.

Moore-Gilbert was accused of being a spy, and subsequently convicted of espionage in a shadowy trial presided over by Iran’s most notorious judge who sentenced her to 10 years in prison.

Her new book The Uncaged Sky tells the story of the 804 days she spent incarcerated in Tehran’s Evin and Qarchak prisons, where she was held in solitary confinement for months — her only lifeline the covert friendships she made with other prisoners.