{"id":1634,"date":"2020-07-28T18:44:15","date_gmt":"2020-07-28T18:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1634"},"modified":"2020-07-28T18:44:15","modified_gmt":"2020-07-28T18:44:15","slug":"scholar-held-at-gharchak-prison-alongside-violent-criminals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1634","title":{"rendered":"Scholar Held at Gharchak Prison Alongside Violent Criminals"},"content":{"rendered":"

July 28, 2020\u2014The Australian academic\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Kylie Moore-Gilbert<\/a>, who has been imprisoned in Iran on spurious charges since October 2018, has been moved to the notoriously harsh Gharchak Prison, south of Tehran, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has learned, where she will be held alongside violent prisoners.<\/span><\/p>\n

Reza Khandan<\/a>, the husband of imprisoned human rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh<\/a>,\u00a0wrote\u00a0on Facebook on July 26, 2020, \u201cAustralian national Kylie\u00a0Moore-Gilbert, who was in security detention in Evin Prison, has been moved to the quarantine unit in Gharchak Prison as a form of punishment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

CHRI has independently confirmed that Ms. Moore-Gilbert is being held at Gharchak.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cComplete contempt for the law is being compounded by inexplicable cruelty towards Kylie Moore-Gilbert,\u201d said Hadi Ghaemi, CHRI executive director.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWithout any evidence of committing a crime, she has been imprisoned for almost two years, subjected to prolonged solitary confinement and now held alongside violent criminals,\u201d Ghaemi said.<\/span><\/p>\n

CHRI urges the international community to condemn the continued imprisonment and inhumane treatment of Kylie Moore-Gilbert, and to call upon the authorities in Iran for her immediate release. At a minimum, she should be immediately transferred to\u00a0Evin Prison\u2019s Women\u2019s Ward, where she would be held alongside other imprisoned\u00a0dual and foreign nationals\u00a0and prisoners of conscience.<\/span><\/p>\n

Australian Scholar: \u201cI can\u2019t eat anything\u2026 I\u2019ve become depressed\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In his Facebook post, Khandan continued: \u201cIn a contact from prison [Moore-Gilbert] said the prison conditions are very bad. She said, \u2018I can\u2019t eat anything\u2026 I don\u2019t know\u2026 I\u2019m very pessimistic\u2026 very very\u2026 I\u2019ve become depressed\u2026\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI asked her about her last contact with her parents and she said the last time she spoke to her family was about a month ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe quarantine unit in Gharchak Prison holds all kinds of criminals, including those convicted of murder and drug and financial offenses. The quarantine unit holds a considerable number of prisoners with the coronavirus disease as well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Both Iranian and\u00a0international law\u00a0requires that prisoners be separated.\u00a0Article 69 of Iran\u2019s State Prisons Organization\u2019s regulations\u00a0states: \u201cAll convicts, upon being admitted to walled prisons or rehabilitation centers, will be separated based on the type and duration of their sentence, prior record, character, morals and behavior, in accordance with decisions made by the Prisoners Classification Council.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, UN human rights experts have\u00a0called on\u00a0the Iranian judiciary to expand its release of detainees to include prisoners of conscience and\u00a0dual and foreign nationals\u00a0due to the serious risk of being infected with COVID-19 in Iran\u2019s crowded and unsanitary prisons.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moore-Gilbert Singled Out for Harsh Treatment as Officials Try to Silence Her<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The move to Gharchak follows a nearly two-year period of particularly harsh treatment Moore-Gilbert was subjected to at Evin Prison, where she had been held in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Intelligence Organization\u2019s Ward 2A. Those conditions included prolonged solitary confinement, which is a violation of international and Iranian law.<\/span><\/p>\n

The UN considers prolonged solitary confinement\u00a0tantamount to torture. According to Iranian law, prisoners can only be held in isolation during the interrogation and investigation phases of their cases and should be transferred to long-term wards after they\u2019ve been sentenced.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moore-Gilbert has also struggled to obtain access to proper food and medication, she reported in a series of\u00a0letters from prison.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a May 2020\u00a0interview, Khandan told CHRI, \u201cThe solitary confinement cell [where she\u2019s held] is basically a bathroom. The space is 2-3 meters with a toilet right there. Imagine living next to a toilet for nearly two years\u2026 She has to sleep on the floor and a carpet without a mattress or pillows.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Moore-Gilbert, a graduate of Australia\u2019s Melbourne University and the UK\u2019s Cambridge University, is a Middle East scholar and professor at Melbourne University. Agents of the IRGC\u2019s Intelligence Organization first arrested her in September 2018 while she was visiting the Iranian city of Qom to attend an academic conference. Moore-Gilbert\u2019s family did not make her arrest public until September 2019 after her appeal against her 10-year prison sentence on sham espionage charges was denied.<\/span><\/p>\n

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July 28, 2020\u2014The Australian academic\u00a0Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who has been imprisoned in Iran on spurious charges since October 2018, has been moved to the notoriously harsh Gharchak Prison, south of Tehran,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[507,506,167,409],"class_list":["post-1634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights","tag-gharchak-prison","tag-kylie-moore-gilbert","tag-nasrin-sotoudeh","tag-reza-khandan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1635,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1634\/revisions\/1635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}