Latest / The You Project / #1570 Innocent In An Iranian Prison - Dr. Kylie Moore-Gilbert

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#1570 Innocent In An Iranian Prison - Dr. Kylie Moore-Gilbert · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: I get a team. Welcome to another installment of the
0:02
Speaker 1: You Project. Craig, Anthony Harper, Melissa, Marie Cameron, and Kylie.
0:06
Speaker 1: We're not sure what her middle name is, but we'll
0:09
Speaker 1: find out. Kylie Moore Gilbert. Welcome to another show. Everyone high, Melissa, Hello,
0:14
Speaker 1: how are you? Oh bloody good? If the sun's out,
0:17
Speaker 1: the birds singing, the bees are buzzing. I just took
0:19
Speaker 1: one of the motorbikes out of the garards for a
0:21
Speaker 1: little bit of stretching of the metaphoric legs, and I
0:26
Speaker 1: lifted some heavy shit at the gym. And it's still
0:28
Speaker 1: only one five and I'm about to have a scintillating conversation.
0:31
Speaker 1: So for me, win our chicken dinner. It's been a
0:35
Speaker 1: good day, fantastic.
0:36
Speaker 2: And have you been enjoying your I think it's the
0:39
Speaker 2: National Day of Morning or something. That's what they're calling
0:42
Speaker 2: it today.
0:42
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's like, that's a loaded question.
0:46
Speaker 1: That's a lot. I feel like I'm not meant to
0:48
Speaker 1: enjoy a National Day of Morning, rush, I don't know.
0:51
Speaker 1: Let's ask Kylie. She's smarter than us. She will know
0:53
Speaker 1: the appropriate answer for that.
0:54
Speaker 2: Hi, Kylie, Hey, thanks for having me on Craig.
0:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, welcome to the You project. What do you do?
1:00
Speaker 1: And on our national day of mourning, allegedly our national
1:03
Speaker 1: day of mourning other than talking to a buffet end Hampton,
1:06
Speaker 1: I mean.
1:07
Speaker 2: Other than wearing black and shedding tears and lighting candle.
1:10
Speaker 2: So I'm kind of chilling at home, going to go
1:12
Speaker 2: on a run this afternoon and maybe spend some time
1:15
Speaker 2: in my garden.
1:17
Speaker 1: Are you Are you an avid gardener or a casual gardener.
1:20
Speaker 2: I'm a casual gardener. Yes, only when the weather's good.
1:23
Speaker 2: Do I bother going out there.
1:26
Speaker 1: I'm a little bit with you. I have the lowest
1:27
Speaker 1: maintenance garden in the world. I had it built. I'm
1:31
Speaker 1: sure you don't get built created, I don't know, planted
1:33
Speaker 1: about ten years ago. It's primarily bamboo trees that create
1:37
Speaker 1: a screen around my house. And they are about twenty
1:43
Speaker 1: meters not twenty meters, twenty feet or six meters higher
1:46
Speaker 1: than the top of my house. So I have this beautiful,
1:48
Speaker 1: wow green screen. And I live in suburbia, so when
1:52
Speaker 1: I look out all the windows in my house, I
1:53
Speaker 1: can't see any suburbia, any road, any traffic. I just
1:56
Speaker 1: see trees. So I feel like I'm in the middle
2:01
Speaker 1: of something not urban's okay, bamboo jungle. Are you a
2:09
Speaker 1: an avid runner or a casual runner?
2:12
Speaker 2: I am an avid runner who's sort of casual at
2:16
Speaker 2: the moment, trying to get back into avid if that makes.
2:18
Speaker 1: Sense there, No, there's a scale. Have you done any
2:21
Speaker 1: not that it matters. Have you done any runs? Like,
2:23
Speaker 1: have you ever done a half or a full marathon
2:25
Speaker 1: or anything like that.
2:26
Speaker 2: I've done one half before, Yeah, how'd you go? I've
2:28
Speaker 2: never done a full? Oh not bad, but actually it
2:31
Speaker 2: was in the UK and it was snowing at the time,
2:33
Speaker 2: so that really set me back and kind of put
2:37
Speaker 2: me off doing another one. But I might someday.
2:39
Speaker 1: That's yeah, I reckon doing half a marathon in the
2:43
Speaker 1: snow is analogous to a full marathon not in the snow.
2:48
Speaker 1: So I'll give you an honorary marathon a title. You're welcome.
2:52
Speaker 2: Thank you. I don't know if I can claim that. Yes,
2:55
Speaker 2: it was tough.
2:56
Speaker 1: Tell people what you do at the moment before we
2:59
Speaker 1: go round and round with your story and back and forth.
3:02
Speaker 1: But like, what's your job as we sit here at
3:04
Speaker 1: the twenty second of September twenty twenty two. What's your job, Kylie?
3:07
Speaker 1: What do you do?
3:08
Speaker 2: I don't have a job at the moment, per se am.
3:12
Speaker 2: I wrote a book called The Uncaged Sky, and that
3:15
Speaker 2: came out about five or six months ago now, so
3:18
Speaker 2: my quote unquote job for the past half year has
3:21
Speaker 2: been promoting the book and I've been doing very speaking
3:24
Speaker 2: engagements as well, so that's taking up the amount of
3:28
Speaker 2: my time as well as doing what's of advocacy stuff
3:30
Speaker 2: as well, human rights and you know, hostage diplomacy, advocacy
3:35
Speaker 2: behind the scenes.
3:36
Speaker 1: That's a job. Well, it's not a job, but it's work. Well,
3:39
Speaker 1: if we're being technical, I've had a job for thirty
3:42
Speaker 1: two years, so we're both unemployed. How's the book? Has
3:48
Speaker 1: the book gone?
3:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's going pretty well. I've had a very positive reception.
3:53
Speaker 2: A lot of people have given me great feedback on it.
3:55
Speaker 2: So no, that's all that matters to me really. I
3:59
Speaker 2: just want to get the message out about what's happening
4:02
Speaker 2: in Iran and the phenomenon of arbitrary detention that you know,
4:06
Speaker 2: I got caught up in, and if that's happening, then
4:11
Speaker 2: I'm happy.
4:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, amazing. All right, Well let's start there. I was
4:14
Speaker 1: going to get there eventually, but let's start there. So
4:16
Speaker 1: your book was called The Uncaged Sky, My eight hundred
4:19
Speaker 1: and four Days in an Iranian Prison, which has been
4:23
Speaker 1: shortlisted for the twenty twenty two Nonfiction Age Book of
4:26
Speaker 1: the Year. Congratulations, So you must have done a good job.
4:29
Speaker 1: Is it your first book? Yeah?
4:31
Speaker 2: My first book? Actually? Yeah, I was writing a book
4:33
Speaker 2: when I was arrested, can you believe? And that book
4:35
Speaker 2: has now been canned because it's out of date, which
4:38
Speaker 2: is very frustrating, one of the unintended consequences of getting
4:43
Speaker 2: thrown in prison in a foreign country. But that book
4:46
Speaker 2: was sort of an academic work based on my PhD.
4:48
Speaker 2: So this is the first non academic piece of writing
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Speaker 2: I've ever really published.
4:54
Speaker 1: Oh wow, wow, Yeah, I've done it the other way around.
4:56
Speaker 1: I've published only non academic things, and now, two hundred
5:00
Speaker 1: and fifteen years of age, I'm writing academic papers, which
5:03
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. Can you help? Do you like writing academic stuff?
5:09
Speaker 1: You know?
5:10
Speaker 2: I used to like it. I'm pretty good at it,
5:12
Speaker 2: but now I find it quite try and boring. Can
5:14
Speaker 2: you believe?
5:14
Speaker 1: So? Shit, why don't you just discovered this? Well?
5:19
Speaker 2: Look, I always thought my research topics were very interesting,
5:22
Speaker 2: and you know, my research was in political science, mainly
5:25
Speaker 2: focusing on the Middle East, so a lot of stuff's
5:27
Speaker 2: happening in that space, and I found the research really interesting.
5:30
Speaker 2: But the actual writing and the style of writing that
5:34
Speaker 2: you need to adopt in academia, it's, yeah, it's pretty boring.
5:37
Speaker 2: It's pretty unreadable to the average person as well. I
5:41
Speaker 2: much prefer, you know, like my book, something that's a
5:43
Speaker 2: bit more accessible and easy to read and more fun
5:46
Speaker 2: to write as well.
5:47
Speaker 1: Was it liberating being although I'm sure recounting everything wasn't
5:51
Speaker 1: particularly enjoyable at times, but it was liberating and also
5:58
Speaker 1: therapeutic writing it or was it something else?
6:02
Speaker 2: Oh, it was definitely therapeutic. It was cathartic. I just
6:07
Speaker 2: it poured out of me. You know, I actually wrote
6:09
Speaker 2: twice the amount that's in the book, and I essentially
6:12
Speaker 2: had to cut it in half, which was a very
6:14
Speaker 2: torturous process because you know, you're very attached to every
6:17
Speaker 2: anecdote into every part of the story. But yeah, it
6:22
Speaker 2: just helped me process everything. It helped me make sense
6:24
Speaker 2: of what happened to me, and I guess put it
6:27
Speaker 2: into order in my mind because it was all jumbled
6:29
Speaker 2: mess before that. So I found it to be a
6:32
Speaker 2: really therapeutic exercise. Actually, I really enjoyed the writing process.
6:36
Speaker 1: So let me guess it started out at about one
6:38
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty thousand, and you wound it down to
6:40
Speaker 1: bad id.
6:42
Speaker 2: It was about two hundred and twenty thousand. Oh wow,
6:45
Speaker 2: and now it's one hundred and forty so it's even
6:49
Speaker 2: that's a book. Yes, yes, it's at the max of
6:53
Speaker 2: They told me you can't even add one more page
6:56
Speaker 2: because we don't have enough paper for the printers. We've
6:58
Speaker 2: already bought the paper and we've got we've scheduled the
7:01
Speaker 2: max number of pages, and you've just about to exceed it.
7:04
Speaker 2: So yeah, it was a real wow.
7:07
Speaker 1: That is a really big book. One hundred and forty
7:09
Speaker 1: thousand words. I'm guessing that is around four hundred and
7:13
Speaker 1: fifty pages or something.
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Speaker 2: I don't even know how many pages. It's probably probably
7:18
Speaker 2: four hundred odd pages. Maybe that's a lot.
7:20
Speaker 1: And how long did that take you to write?
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Speaker 2: Ten months? Yeah?
7:29
Speaker 1: Wow? All right, so let's talk about let me just
7:31
Speaker 1: I'm stealing this straight from Mia Friedman. Thank you, Maya
7:35
Speaker 1: from No Filter. Let's give her a plug as well,
7:38
Speaker 1: thanks mea, Thanks Mia. Shout out to Maya. On the
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Speaker 1: twelfth of September twenty eighteen, Australian academic Kylie Moore Gilbert
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Speaker 1: was rested in Tehran's International Airport in Range. She spent
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Speaker 1: eight hundred and four days incarcerated in Tehran's Evan And
7:52
Speaker 1: how do I say? That? Is a karchak carchack karchak
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Speaker 1: prison for espionage, a crime she never committed. She was
7:59
Speaker 1: in an Australian stuck in a foreign prison with no
8:02
Speaker 1: way of getting home. Kylie's story about her imprisonment and
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Speaker 1: what happened after she was finally released is unbelievable, except
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Speaker 1: it really happened. Do you get bored of telling this story?
8:15
Speaker 1: I don't want you to feel like you're in groundhog Day?
8:18
Speaker 1: But do you get bored recounting this?
8:20
Speaker 2: No? No, I don't get bored. No, I mean it is.
8:23
Speaker 2: You know, I've done a few interviews for the book,
8:25
Speaker 2: and sometimes they're a bit groundhog Day. But also if
8:27
Speaker 2: it's a good interviewer, you know, you guys all think
8:30
Speaker 2: of new stuff to ask at, new angles and comments
8:33
Speaker 2: on it, so you know, it is my life, so
8:37
Speaker 2: to talk about it if it actually happened to you,
8:39
Speaker 2: then it is if it's just some you know, specialty,
8:41
Speaker 2: your expertise you've got.
8:43
Speaker 1: So that's right, and it's not like you've got to
8:45
Speaker 1: It's not like you've got to try and recall data
8:47
Speaker 1: from something you read, like you're literally recounting your experience.
8:51
Speaker 1: All right, Start wherever you want, and I'll try not
8:53
Speaker 1: to interject too much. So how did this end up
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Speaker 1: that you were arrested at an international airport and spent
9:02
Speaker 1: is what is that sober? Two years in Jaiga?
9:04
Speaker 2: Two years and three months. Yeah, I went to Iran
9:08
Speaker 2: for a two and a half week trip. That was,
9:11
Speaker 2: I guess a business trip proof by my university, and
9:16
Speaker 2: i'd attended a one week conference there and I was
9:18
Speaker 2: actually invited to come by an Iranian university to that conference,
9:22
Speaker 2: and it was specifically for foreigners. I wasn't a scholar
9:26
Speaker 2: of Iran. I was studying the Arab states off the
9:29
Speaker 2: Persian Gulf, you know, particularly Bahrain actually at the time,
9:34
Speaker 2: and it was sort of relevant to my research, especially
9:39
Speaker 2: the religious aspect. I needed to learn more about that,
9:41
Speaker 2: so I thought it would be a good opportunity. And
9:45
Speaker 2: because of my research project, I met a few people
9:47
Speaker 2: in Iran who I interviewed for that the research project
9:51
Speaker 2: was about Bahrain again, not about Iran. And I had
9:55
Speaker 2: a great time and I did a little bit of
9:56
Speaker 2: tourism too and met some interesting people and to the
10:00
Speaker 2: airport to fly back home and was approached by a
10:03
Speaker 2: group of men and told they have a warrant for
10:06
Speaker 2: my arrest and that I'm not going to be making
10:09
Speaker 2: the flight and instead I need to come and be
10:10
Speaker 2: interrogated by them. So yeah, it was It was quite
10:14
Speaker 2: a shock. And I hadn't done anything wrong, so you
10:18
Speaker 2: just you know, yeah, initially you tell yourself, well, I'm innocent,
10:23
Speaker 2: so they'll figure that out and they'll let me go.
10:25
Speaker 2: They'll realize it's a bit a mistake or a misunderstanding.
10:29
Speaker 2: But I came to understand pretty quickly that that didn't matter.
10:33
Speaker 2: You know, they didn't care if I was innocent or guilty.
10:35
Speaker 2: I had some sort of value as a foreigner. It's
10:38
Speaker 2: a foreign citizen that they saw that they could trade
10:41
Speaker 2: me for something, some diplomatic leverage. I'm a UK citizen
10:46
Speaker 2: as well, so either from the UK or Australia, and
10:50
Speaker 2: you know, I just became a kind of a hostage
10:52
Speaker 2: in a way.
10:54
Speaker 1: Is that looking back, is that do you believe that
10:58
Speaker 1: that's the reason that they just identified you as potentially
11:02
Speaker 1: a valuable pawn in a political game.
11:06
Speaker 2: I don't think that's the initial reason why they picked
11:08
Speaker 2: me up. What happened was a chap that I had
11:13
Speaker 2: met in the city of Kom which was where the
11:16
Speaker 2: conference was being held. He was a Bahraini guy living
11:19
Speaker 2: in Iran, and I interviewed him about Bahrain. He had
11:23
Speaker 2: some sort of connection to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,
11:25
Speaker 2: which is the militant group that arrested me. They are
11:29
Speaker 2: kind of a state within a state in Iran. They're
11:31
Speaker 2: not the government, but they're kind of associated with the government,
11:35
Speaker 2: and so he had either been working for them as
11:38
Speaker 2: an informer or might have even been arrested by them,
11:42
Speaker 2: but he had some link to them, and it was
11:44
Speaker 2: him that dabbed me in and flagged me as somebody
11:47
Speaker 2: of interest or somebody suspicious with this IGC Revolutionary Guard Corps,
11:52
Speaker 2: and that is why they initially picked me up. But
11:55
Speaker 2: then obviously they once they picked me up, they weren't
11:58
Speaker 2: going to let me go. And if they knew that
12:00
Speaker 2: I'd done nothing wrong, why Because they had value that.
12:05
Speaker 2: They have a history of arresting foreigners and using them
12:09
Speaker 2: as a bargaining chip in a transaction with the country
12:13
Speaker 2: of origin, whether that be US, Canada, UK, Germany, Australia wherever.
12:19
Speaker 2: They've done it many times before, going back to the
12:21
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine hostage crisis where they took all of
12:24
Speaker 2: the US embassy staff hostage for more than four hundred days.
12:28
Speaker 2: So they know what pays dividends for them. If they
12:31
Speaker 2: catch some sort of genuine spy, great, but if they
12:34
Speaker 2: catch an innocent person, well that's also great because they
12:37
Speaker 2: can just trade you for something. So that's how they operate.
12:40
Speaker 2: And I think they knew that I wasn't. I was
12:43
Speaker 2: ultimately charged with spying. I think they knew I wasn't
12:46
Speaker 2: actually a spy, and that was ludicrous a. I think
12:49
Speaker 2: that was just the sort of you know, narrative that
12:53
Speaker 2: they were.
12:54
Speaker 1: Sin justify it. Someway, Yeah exactly, yeah, yeah. What were
12:59
Speaker 1: you at the airport by yourself, Kylie? Or were you
13:01
Speaker 1: with someone?
13:03
Speaker 2: No? I was by myself.
13:04
Speaker 1: Oh god, so you couldn't even tell it, like there
13:07
Speaker 1: was no one even there that could ring someone and
13:09
Speaker 1: go this is what's going.
13:10
Speaker 2: On nobody, and I was actually, when I was being arrested,
13:14
Speaker 2: I was looking around frantically trying to catch somebody's eye,
13:17
Speaker 2: you know, an Iranian foreign tourist, anyone, and nobody would
13:20
Speaker 2: look at me. Everyone sort of gave us a white
13:24
Speaker 2: berth and I wanted to scream and shout, but you know,
13:26
Speaker 2: I had nobody there, And yeah, it was It was
13:29
Speaker 2: quite terrifying. Were you thirty three?
13:33
Speaker 1: That's crazy, that's and I mean, I know this is
13:36
Speaker 1: dumb because I think I know the answer, But in
13:39
Speaker 1: that moment where you're bewildered, you're overwhelmed, it's ridiculous, It
13:45
Speaker 1: makes no sense, and you're trying to even understand why.
13:49
Speaker 1: What was going through your head? What was happening emotionally?
13:53
Speaker 1: Were you angry? Were you terrified? Were you confused? What
13:58
Speaker 1: was the dominant kind of on a know state?
14:01
Speaker 2: I think I was mainly confused. I wasn't terrified of
14:05
Speaker 2: them yet because I didn't know who they were. I
14:07
Speaker 2: obviously had heard of the Revolutionary Guards, but these guys
14:10
Speaker 2: weren't wearing a uniform. There was no badge, no license, nothing.
14:13
Speaker 2: I had no idea who they were. I assumed there
14:16
Speaker 2: was some sort of border police or something at the beginning,
14:19
Speaker 2: and that the whole thing would be cleared up. It
14:21
Speaker 2: was a misunderstanding, and you know, they'd let me go
14:24
Speaker 2: and catch my flight. So I was initially just confused
14:26
Speaker 2: because I didn't speak the language Farsi. Everything was happening
14:30
Speaker 2: in Farsi around me, and I had no idea. I
14:33
Speaker 2: couldn't even understand what they were saying, and only one
14:36
Speaker 2: of them spoke basic English. So even this page they
14:40
Speaker 2: were brandishing the arrest warrant they were showing me, the
14:43
Speaker 2: whole thing was in Farsi. I couldn't read it, and
14:46
Speaker 2: I had no idea what it was. It just looked
14:48
Speaker 2: like a random print out from a computer. So I
14:51
Speaker 2: was super confused and just I think in shock, and
14:54
Speaker 2: I didn't let myself believe that I was actually being arrested.
14:57
Speaker 2: I thought, okay, that they mean they're going to ask
14:58
Speaker 2: me a few questions and then the or let me
15:00
Speaker 2: catch my flight.
15:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, And when do you think or at what stage
15:06
Speaker 1: did they realize do you think that you weren't some
15:11
Speaker 1: like you said, they weren't going to let you go
15:12
Speaker 1: no matter what because you were valuable to them. But
15:15
Speaker 1: when do you think they realized that you weren't some
15:17
Speaker 1: kind of I don't know, bloody criminal trying to perpetrate
15:22
Speaker 1: some injustice or some crime. I should say, Oh, I think.
15:26
Speaker 2: They knew from the first day or two, you know,
15:29
Speaker 2: it was clear that there was no evidence of any spying.
15:32
Speaker 2: I mean they there was no evidence of me trying
15:34
Speaker 2: to hide anything I was doing either. I had all
15:37
Speaker 2: my research material, everything, my laptop, my phone. I just
15:41
Speaker 2: sort of presented it to the want a platter at
15:42
Speaker 2: the airport when they arrested me. You know what kind
15:44
Speaker 2: of spy would do that? They'd go and hide there,
15:47
Speaker 2: you know, listen, definitely fails by school exactly Like I
15:52
Speaker 2: actually said to them, Look, I'm not stupid. Do you
15:54
Speaker 2: think I'd be that dumb if I was a spy,
15:56
Speaker 2: I wouldn't try and like, I don't know, I upload
15:58
Speaker 2: this stuff to the cloud and just the evidence or
16:01
Speaker 2: send it to some agent somewhere. You know, I've just
16:04
Speaker 2: given it all to you straight up.
16:06
Speaker 1: So how did they How did they treat you? Where
16:09
Speaker 1: did they take you? Did they take you to a
16:11
Speaker 1: room at the airport or transfer you out of the airport?
16:14
Speaker 1: What happened?
16:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was at a room at the airport for
16:17
Speaker 2: about six hours or so, being interrogated there, and then
16:21
Speaker 2: they put me in a blacked out car with a
16:22
Speaker 2: couple of female guards in between me, and drove me
16:26
Speaker 2: to a safe house in North Tehran. I was interrogated
16:30
Speaker 2: overnight there and didn't really sleep until about ten am
16:34
Speaker 2: when they stopped the next day. And then they put
16:38
Speaker 2: me in a hotel, initially a hotel that I was
16:41
Speaker 2: sort of imprisoned inside of and wasn't allowed to leave
16:45
Speaker 2: the room I was in, and it was under their control,
16:48
Speaker 2: you know, they had video cameras and things there. So
16:52
Speaker 2: I was in that hotel for about a week and
16:54
Speaker 2: they would the interrogators would come each day and interrogate
16:57
Speaker 2: me all day in the hotel room. And then after
17:00
Speaker 2: that week they made the decision to throw me in prison,
17:04
Speaker 2: and I went to Evan Prison in North Tehran, which
17:07
Speaker 2: is an infamous prison in Iran for political prisoners. And
17:11
Speaker 2: I was thrown into the two A unit there, which
17:14
Speaker 2: is under the control of the Revolutionary Guards and it's
17:17
Speaker 2: a sort of a max security detention compound inside Evan Prison.
17:22
Speaker 1: And so was there a whole lot of internationals at
17:25
Speaker 1: that prison, No, very few.
17:29
Speaker 2: From time to time, foreigners were arrested and then released.
17:33
Speaker 2: There's a few foreigners, in particular dual nationals so Iranians
17:37
Speaker 2: who have foreign passports in Evan Prison, and some of
17:40
Speaker 2: them have been there for a number of years. There's
17:42
Speaker 2: a handful of Americans. There are a couple of Brits,
17:46
Speaker 2: some Germans, some Austrians, et cetera. But I never had
17:48
Speaker 2: anything to do with them because they had been sentenced
17:51
Speaker 2: years before me, and most of them were men. Actually,
17:53
Speaker 2: they were all in the public part of the prison,
17:55
Speaker 2: in the men's ward. A few foreigners came through the
17:59
Speaker 2: women's unit when I was there. There was a Bahrainy
18:01
Speaker 2: woman who was actually recruited as a spy and was
18:04
Speaker 2: one of the most evil people I'd ever met actually
18:07
Speaker 2: in my whole experience. There was also a couple of Australians.
18:10
Speaker 2: So I don't know if you remember those two backpackers
18:13
Speaker 2: that were arrested for flying a drone in Iran in
18:16
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, so they were in the same unit as me,
18:19
Speaker 2: and I had a couple of encounters with Jolly, the
18:22
Speaker 2: Aussie female who was in the cell down the hall
18:25
Speaker 2: from me when I was there. So there were occasionally foreigners,
18:30
Speaker 2: but I was really the only foreign woman that was
18:32
Speaker 2: there for any long stretch of time.
18:34
Speaker 1: So you've been picked up at the airport, Obviously somebody
18:38
Speaker 1: back home is waiting at Sydney Airport or wherever. Where
18:41
Speaker 1: were you.
18:42
Speaker 2: Flying to Melbourne? Yeah?
18:44
Speaker 1: Right, so your family or friends who was waiting at
18:47
Speaker 1: the other end? And what happened at the other end.
18:50
Speaker 2: My ex husband was waiting at the other end. I
18:54
Speaker 2: was actually allowed to message him and my parents on
18:58
Speaker 2: my own WhatsApp in Iran by my guards, and they
19:03
Speaker 2: told me to come up with this sort of bogus excuse.
19:06
Speaker 2: So they said, message your family and tell them that
19:09
Speaker 2: you've spontaneously decided to stay in Iran for a few
19:13
Speaker 2: more weeks and you're doing more research and you've got
19:15
Speaker 2: some research opportunities, and that's why you're not coming home.
19:18
Speaker 2: But they would have known that was BS because I'd
19:21
Speaker 2: actually messaged them when I was at the airport before
19:24
Speaker 2: checking in, saying, Hey, I'm at the airport, I'm about
19:26
Speaker 2: to come home. So they would have smelled a rat
19:29
Speaker 2: like right at the beginning, I think, right right?
19:32
Speaker 1: And so were any panic buttons pressed back here? Was
19:38
Speaker 1: anything activated? Was anyone alerted. Was the government notified or.
19:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe they notified defat in the first day
19:48
Speaker 2: or two that I'd gone missing.
19:50
Speaker 1: Essentially, Wow, so and so so, tell us about before
19:55
Speaker 1: you got put in jail, Tell us about so what
19:58
Speaker 1: did in the hotels? All day? Every day you're being interrogated,
20:02
Speaker 1: What I mean, how much stuff can they ask an
20:05
Speaker 1: innocent person who's not committing any crimes. They essentially asking
20:10
Speaker 1: you the same things one hundred different ways.
20:12
Speaker 2: Often they were yes. Basically they got into my emails,
20:16
Speaker 2: my mobile phone, my laptop, and you know, I was
20:22
Speaker 2: forced to give them the passwords for those, and they
20:25
Speaker 2: went trolled through all of my thousands of emails and
20:28
Speaker 2: thousands of contacts and bits and bobs over the years,
20:31
Speaker 2: and would pull out every minute thing. You know. Often
20:35
Speaker 2: I have no recollection of what they were talking about
20:37
Speaker 2: because it had been something that happened four years earlier.
20:40
Speaker 2: Or I remember even a couple of people who were
20:42
Speaker 2: c seed on an email that I received years earlier
20:46
Speaker 2: were suddenly brought up as being people I knew were
20:49
Speaker 2: acquaintances of mine of interest, and they'd interrogate me about
20:52
Speaker 2: these people, and I had no idea even who they
20:54
Speaker 2: were because it was just a CC on an email,
20:57
Speaker 2: you know, so they went sort of with a fine
21:00
Speaker 2: who is going through everything? Photographs I'd had of people? Also,
21:05
Speaker 2: what was I doing in Iran? Where was I going?
21:07
Speaker 2: Who was I talking to when I was in Iran? Too?
21:09
Speaker 2: They were very interested in the university sector in Australia
21:13
Speaker 2: in all my contacts in various universities. They were interested
21:16
Speaker 2: in UK universities too, and if I knew this person
21:19
Speaker 2: or that person, this academic, that academic. So yeah, it
21:24
Speaker 2: often seemed kind of pointless in arbitrary, but also yes,
21:28
Speaker 2: they would ask the same questions again and again in
21:30
Speaker 2: different ways and on different days to see if my
21:32
Speaker 2: answers changed as well to kind of trip me up
21:35
Speaker 2: there as well.
21:37
Speaker 1: Did you go you know I'm smarter than you? Did
21:40
Speaker 1: you do you know? I know what you're doing?
21:45
Speaker 2: Like I knew they were.
21:46
Speaker 1: Did you get pissed, Carl? When did the anger come
21:50
Speaker 1: or didn't it? Oh?
21:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was very angry at many many occasions. You know.
21:56
Speaker 2: I first got properly angry and upset when I was
21:58
Speaker 2: thrown in prison because I didn't even know I was
22:01
Speaker 2: going to be thrown in prison They're constantly lying to
22:04
Speaker 2: you know, they were constantly telling me just to answer
22:06
Speaker 2: all our questions, and we're going to put you on
22:08
Speaker 2: a plane back to Australia on the weekend, you know.
22:10
Speaker 2: So they were lying to me right up until the end.
22:13
Speaker 2: And when I figured out that I was being admitted
22:16
Speaker 2: into prison, I mean I had a meltdown. I was
22:20
Speaker 2: not just angry, but upset, scared, anxious, and I was
22:24
Speaker 2: thrown in solitary confinement, which was really traumatic and you know, confronting.
22:30
Speaker 2: And also I had no idea what was happening because
22:32
Speaker 2: again I didn't speak the language, so nobody explained to
22:35
Speaker 2: me even where I was. I didn't even know I
22:37
Speaker 2: was in Evan prison. I didn't know that the solitary
22:41
Speaker 2: confinement cell was be where I would have to live
22:43
Speaker 2: for the next month. I didn't know why I was there.
22:46
Speaker 2: I knew nothing, and I couldn't even communicate with my
22:48
Speaker 2: jailers because the prison guards didn't speak English. So it
22:53
Speaker 2: was just I was a all of rage and anxiety,
22:57
Speaker 2: and yeah, it was horrific.
23:00
Speaker 1: How did you survive that? How do you be in
23:03
Speaker 1: another country in a box, locked away, can't talk to
23:07
Speaker 1: people you love? They can't talk to you being like literally,
23:14
Speaker 1: you know, incarcerated for something you didn't do. It's not
23:18
Speaker 1: like you did a bad thing and now you're suffering,
23:19
Speaker 1: and oh fuck, I did a bad thing. I feel
23:22
Speaker 1: I realized, you know, this is like you didn't do
23:24
Speaker 1: anything and you're being punished. How did you manage, like
23:28
Speaker 1: tell us about the emotional and the psychological management that
23:33
Speaker 1: had to happen.
23:36
Speaker 2: I didn't at all cope at the beginning. I was obviously,
23:42
Speaker 2: you know, completely frantic and traumatized by solitary confinement. I
23:47
Speaker 2: think it took me about two weeks to properly get
23:50
Speaker 2: a lid on my emotional response and my terror to
23:54
Speaker 2: being in solitary because it's psychological torture and they're deliberately
23:58
Speaker 2: putting you in there to break psychologically, and you do break,
24:02
Speaker 2: and at the beginning, your brain doesn't know how to
24:04
Speaker 2: deal with it, because you've gone from being overstimulated now
24:08
Speaker 2: and you know, today's lifestyle, to having zero stimulation whatsoever,
24:13
Speaker 2: zero mental stimulation, and your brain just snaps. I mean,
24:18
Speaker 2: you literally bounce off the walls. I would actually hear
24:21
Speaker 2: other people in solitary throwing themselves against the walls. Throwing
24:24
Speaker 2: themselves against the doors and screaming because they just couldn't
24:27
Speaker 2: take the hours and hours and hours of isolation with
24:30
Speaker 2: no stimulus whatsoever. You know, you become your own torturer, really,
24:35
Speaker 2: and I went through that phase, but luckily it ended
24:38
Speaker 2: for me, and I say it ends for probably eighty
24:41
Speaker 2: percent of the people because I spoke to many many
24:43
Speaker 2: other prisoners who've been in solitary too, and in this
24:46
Speaker 2: extreme solitary situation, and you know, the human brain finds
24:51
Speaker 2: a way to adapt and survive for most people, but
24:54
Speaker 2: I would say about twenty percent or ten percent never
24:58
Speaker 2: do and are just flipping out out permanently. And in
25:01
Speaker 2: that case, often they end up being hospitalized. And I've
25:04
Speaker 2: heard it as well, but luckily it didn't happen to me.
25:09
Speaker 2: My brain sort of slowed itself down. I found ways
25:14
Speaker 2: of just occupying my mind for hours and hours, and
25:18
Speaker 2: it would sort of be best to sleep for as
25:20
Speaker 2: long as possible and inhabit like my memories as much
25:23
Speaker 2: as possible, lie on the ground with a blanket over
25:26
Speaker 2: my head and just close my eyes and think through
25:30
Speaker 2: childhood memories and just as best as possible not notice
25:34
Speaker 2: the passage of time. And stop caring about time, and
25:37
Speaker 2: stop caring about yesterday and tomorrow and just focus on
25:40
Speaker 2: the prison routine in the here and now. That's what
25:43
Speaker 2: sort of got me through in the end.
25:45
Speaker 1: Do you think that that's incredible? Do you think that
25:50
Speaker 1: because you're an academic and and part of that is
25:54
Speaker 1: curiosity and learning and being open minded, and like, did
26:00
Speaker 1: you get to a point where you started to think, like,
26:05
Speaker 1: was there a metacognitive breakthrough where you're aware of how
26:08
Speaker 1: you're thinking and what's happening in your mind? Did you
26:11
Speaker 1: find any space between the chaos and you? And did
26:15
Speaker 1: that help?
26:17
Speaker 2: There were many times when I did, but not really
26:20
Speaker 2: when I was in that extreme solitary confinement situation, I
26:23
Speaker 2: was only there for one month. In that it was
26:25
Speaker 2: a tiny box two and a half by two and
26:27
Speaker 2: a half meters, no window, no natural light, lights on
26:31
Speaker 2: twenty four seven, no furniture, no pillow, no sheets, no anything.
26:37
Speaker 2: I couldn't even bring in food into the room. I
26:40
Speaker 2: couldn't bring my own toothbrush, nothing, and I was only
26:44
Speaker 2: allowed to shower once every three days. It was extreme deprobation.
26:48
Speaker 2: And you know, you'd be in there for twenty three
26:51
Speaker 2: hours a day on your own and that I didn't
26:55
Speaker 2: find any cognitive peace per se. It was more about
26:59
Speaker 2: toll rating what was happening to me and stopping it
27:03
Speaker 2: from breaking me down. Entirely, I think it was you
27:07
Speaker 2: were just in extreme survival mode. I don't think any
27:10
Speaker 2: human would ever become fully comfortable or be able to
27:13
Speaker 2: fully detach from their fear and negative emotions in such
27:17
Speaker 2: a place. You know, maybe the Dalai Lama or somebody,
27:20
Speaker 2: but certainly not me. But when I was look I
27:24
Speaker 2: spent twelve months in solitary all up, but not in
27:27
Speaker 2: an extreme solitary like that cell. When I was alone.
27:31
Speaker 2: In other cells, you know, which had toilets attached, terrible
27:35
Speaker 2: filthy squad of toilets, but still you could take yourself
27:38
Speaker 2: to the toilet when you wanted. And a small television
27:41
Speaker 2: which would There were only four channels, and they were
27:44
Speaker 2: all Iranian soap operas. Again I didn't understand the language,
27:48
Speaker 2: but at least kind of watching that would often pass
27:51
Speaker 2: the time, even though I had no idea what was
27:53
Speaker 2: going on, and that after a while, after a few months,
27:57
Speaker 2: I got some books, I got some writing materials, and
28:00
Speaker 2: they eased up on me a bit. And that's when
28:02
Speaker 2: I started to use my academic curiosity and intellect to
28:07
Speaker 2: examine critically what was happening to me and how I
28:09
Speaker 2: was responding to it, and try and find ways and
28:12
Speaker 2: methods of surviving in a more healthy fashion. But in
28:16
Speaker 2: that first one month that I spent in that extreme
28:19
Speaker 2: solitary box, no way. I was just just trying to survive.
28:23
Speaker 2: That was my only instinct.
28:25
Speaker 1: Really, And the one hour a day that you weren't
28:28
Speaker 1: in that box, where were you and what was happening?
28:31
Speaker 2: So they took us for half an hour in the
28:33
Speaker 2: morning and half an hour in the evening to an
28:36
Speaker 2: area called Tabajori, which was like a balcony about ten
28:40
Speaker 2: meters in length with fully screened off by corrugated iron,
28:45
Speaker 2: attached to the women's unit, and we were just I
28:47
Speaker 2: would be allowed to pace backwards and forwards for half
28:49
Speaker 2: an hour in the outside fresh air there. Yeah, And.
28:56
Speaker 1: How many other people were in this space when you
28:58
Speaker 1: were there?
28:59
Speaker 2: Oh? Nobody, because when you're in solitary you can't see anybody,
29:02
Speaker 2: that's the point. So you're alone there as well.
29:06
Speaker 1: And could you see the sky?
29:08
Speaker 2: Yes? The sky was really the only free space I
29:14
Speaker 2: could see. And you know, it's one reason why I
29:16
Speaker 2: called the book the un Caged Sky, because actually I
29:19
Speaker 2: was in a few different units with a few different
29:22
Speaker 2: harbory spaces, and some of them actually had caged the sky,
29:27
Speaker 2: like they had literally built metal bars above your head,
29:31
Speaker 2: so that three hundred and sixty degrees of the space
29:33
Speaker 2: had been caged in. And that was the worst because
29:36
Speaker 2: you could look you had to look up through bars
29:39
Speaker 2: if you wanted to watch the birds or the clouds
29:41
Speaker 2: or look at the sun. But this particular one at
29:44
Speaker 2: the beginning didn't have a cage, and you know, I
29:46
Speaker 2: would just spend all my time looking up, following the
29:49
Speaker 2: various birds in the trees, and you know, just looking
29:53
Speaker 2: at the trees in the far off distance, and they
29:55
Speaker 2: would lose their leaves in the autumn and rig grow
29:57
Speaker 2: them in the spring, and so I'd be watching for
29:59
Speaker 2: buds for you know, all that tree's got more leaves today,
30:03
Speaker 2: and you know, observing the natural world, you know, was
30:06
Speaker 2: how I liked to spend those half hour breaks outside.
30:10
Speaker 1: And after the initial months, where did you go from there?
30:15
Speaker 2: I went into a slightly biggest cell about three and
30:17
Speaker 2: a half meters by one and a half and yet
30:20
Speaker 2: it had that TV and that squatter toilet by yourself
30:24
Speaker 2: help by myself.
30:25
Speaker 1: Yes, and what were how how long were you in
30:29
Speaker 1: there every day? And was there were you allowed in
30:33
Speaker 1: gen pop or anything or.
30:35
Speaker 2: Oh, exactly the same, So twenty three hours a day
30:38
Speaker 2: in the cell, half an hour in the morning, half
30:40
Speaker 2: an hour in the evening outside. But I should note
30:42
Speaker 2: I was taken for interrogation still, So after the first
30:46
Speaker 2: few days of kind of breaking me alone in that
30:49
Speaker 2: extreme solitary, they started to take me for a few
30:51
Speaker 2: hours a day for interrogation. And even when I moved
30:54
Speaker 2: to that slightly larger cell with the squatter toilet attached,
30:57
Speaker 2: I was still at times being taken for interrogation, but
31:00
Speaker 2: much less frequently, maybe once a week or so. And
31:04
Speaker 2: I used to like want to be interrogated even though
31:06
Speaker 2: they were really horrible to me, because it was somebody
31:09
Speaker 2: to talk to and I wasn't alone.
31:11
Speaker 1: Yes, and you could interact and connect in a weird way.
31:16
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's probably less painful than just sitting in a.
31:20
Speaker 2: Box, definitely, Yeah, And they know it. They know that
31:25
Speaker 2: you want to keep it going as long as possible
31:27
Speaker 2: because you fear being left alone in that box afterwards,
31:31
Speaker 2: And they sort of take advantage of that psychology as well. Yeah,
31:37
Speaker 2: they know exactly what they're doing.
31:39
Speaker 1: Wow, such evil people in the world. And so at
31:45
Speaker 1: what stage in your eight hundred and how it was,
31:49
Speaker 1: I don't in four days. At what stage did you
31:54
Speaker 1: interact with other inmates where you could eat with others
31:57
Speaker 1: and talk with others or did that not happen or
31:59
Speaker 1: that it happened.
32:01
Speaker 2: Oh, it happened. So my first interactions were illicit communications,
32:06
Speaker 2: you know, that were banned, you know, not allowed. But
32:09
Speaker 2: when I was in that extreme solitary cell after about
32:13
Speaker 2: two weeks, a couple of other prisoners across the hall
32:16
Speaker 2: from me had heard me. They knew I was there,
32:19
Speaker 2: they knew I was a foreigner. I didn't speak Facy,
32:21
Speaker 2: they'd spoke English because they were very educated, and they'd
32:24
Speaker 2: heard me constantly struggling trying to communicate in English with
32:28
Speaker 2: these prison guards, heard me crying, heard me upset, and
32:32
Speaker 2: they reached out to me, and they left some dried
32:35
Speaker 2: fruits and nuts in a bag inside a pot plant
32:38
Speaker 2: that was in the outdoor exercise area, and a small
32:41
Speaker 2: note for me that they'd written on a square of
32:43
Speaker 2: toilet paper, basically saying you're not alone, you know. Wow. Yeah,
32:50
Speaker 2: And they'd written they'd scratched this stay strong, You're not alone.
32:54
Speaker 2: They scratched this into the wall with a rock of
32:56
Speaker 2: the outdoor exercise area too, and you know, it's it's
33:00
Speaker 2: very dangerous. The guards are aware that they do these things,
33:02
Speaker 2: and they punish them and they block up the wall again.
33:05
Speaker 2: And it was very lucky that I found this gift
33:08
Speaker 2: and this note that they'd left for me, and I
33:11
Speaker 2: was able to put it in my underwear and take
33:13
Speaker 2: it back to my cell and read it and eat
33:16
Speaker 2: the fruits and nuts, and so we established a kind
33:19
Speaker 2: of a note passing network. And I managed to steal
33:22
Speaker 2: a pen at one point, and when I was in
33:25
Speaker 2: the second cell with the bathroom, I hid my stolen
33:30
Speaker 2: pen in the plumbing of the toilet, which because they
33:32
Speaker 2: would search your cell every day, but they never went
33:35
Speaker 2: into the plumbing because the toilet was pretty filthy. I
33:38
Speaker 2: knew the guards wouldn't want to go near it. So
33:40
Speaker 2: I managed to do that and correspond in English with
33:45
Speaker 2: the neighboring cell. And later on we discovered we could
33:48
Speaker 2: speak through in a conditioning vent in the middle of
33:50
Speaker 2: the night, when the guards had retired to their guard's
33:52
Speaker 2: room and I managed to sort of snatch ten minutes
33:55
Speaker 2: every three days on a particular guard shift with my
33:58
Speaker 2: neighbors English again, and these are the people who gave me,
34:02
Speaker 2: you know, all the information I had about where I was,
34:05
Speaker 2: who had arrested me, what would happen to me, that
34:08
Speaker 2: I would be put on trial, that I would probably
34:11
Speaker 2: be found guilty and then swapped with Australia, you know,
34:14
Speaker 2: in a prisoner swap or something, that this was a
34:17
Speaker 2: pattern of behavior that Iran regularly engaged in. And also
34:22
Speaker 2: how I should handle the interrogations, what I should or
34:24
Speaker 2: shouldn't do. You know, they gave me so much useful information,
34:27
Speaker 2: and you know, as a foreigner with no context or
34:30
Speaker 2: knowledge of Iran, really, you know, it saved my life
34:33
Speaker 2: in a way, because you know, I might have made
34:35
Speaker 2: a false confession, I might have done anything, and these
34:39
Speaker 2: guys really kept me on the right track and also
34:41
Speaker 2: crucially made me understand I'm not alone and I'm not
34:43
Speaker 2: going through this alone, and there are others too, and
34:45
Speaker 2: that they care about me and care about what happens
34:49
Speaker 2: to me, and that I have friends. So that meant
34:51
Speaker 2: the world to me.
34:53
Speaker 1: Wow, all that goodness and all that evil in one place.
34:56
Speaker 1: Did you get to meet them face to face? Kyli?
35:00
Speaker 2: Yes, I met well the first two who reached out
35:04
Speaker 2: to me. One of them, Horda. She was bailed a
35:06
Speaker 2: few months later, so I never met her face to face.
35:09
Speaker 2: But nil Alfa, who was the second inmate in that cell,
35:13
Speaker 2: she became my roommate about ten months later, along with
35:17
Speaker 2: her colleague Cepidere. And these two women became my sisters.
35:21
Speaker 2: You know. I shared a cell with them for ten
35:25
Speaker 2: or eleven months, and everything we did together, we knew
35:28
Speaker 2: each other intimately, and they taught me so much, and
35:32
Speaker 2: they became as close to me, if not closer than
35:35
Speaker 2: an actual birth sister. So these women were just remarkable.
35:39
Speaker 2: I had a number of other cell mates before them.
35:41
Speaker 2: Some were evil, horrible people, and others were lovely and friendly.
35:45
Speaker 2: And it really is, you know, the solidarity that develops
35:49
Speaker 2: between fellow prisoners who are all but being put through
35:52
Speaker 2: hell and going through a horrific experience. It just is
35:55
Speaker 2: It means everything to you. It's the difference between becoming
35:59
Speaker 2: a bus case and finding a way to survive. And
36:03
Speaker 2: I really credit that human connection and that support and
36:06
Speaker 2: that sisterhood with getting me through really, isn't it?
36:12
Speaker 1: Isn't it like when you break everything down and all
36:16
Speaker 1: the bullshit in society and all the stuff we obsess
36:19
Speaker 1: about and focus on, and all the things we want
36:22
Speaker 1: and all the stuff that we think that we need,
36:25
Speaker 1: and all the problems that we think that we have.
36:28
Speaker 1: But when you get to the lowest, lowest, lowest common
36:32
Speaker 1: denominator of a human in a box with no contact,
36:36
Speaker 1: with no support, with no kindness, with no love, with
36:41
Speaker 1: no connection with at times I would think no hope
36:45
Speaker 1: or seeming like no hope, just a bit of love?
36:49
Speaker 1: What an incredible like somebody could offer you ten kilos
36:53
Speaker 1: of gold or a hug, you know, or just like
36:57
Speaker 1: fuck your gold, just talk to me, just listen to me,
37:00
Speaker 1: just be kind to me. Did that must have been
37:05
Speaker 1: like the greatest gift?
37:07
Speaker 2: Honestly it was. I mean, the first time someone actually
37:10
Speaker 2: hugged me probably was several months. I hadn't been touched
37:14
Speaker 2: by another human being for several months, and just that
37:18
Speaker 2: basic expression of care of compassion meant the world to me.
37:25
Speaker 2: It was an incredible hug. And yeah, I mean we
37:30
Speaker 2: are group animals, human beings. We need others and this
37:34
Speaker 2: is why solitary confinement is torture because we're not meant
37:37
Speaker 2: to be alone for prolonged periods of time. You know, socially,
37:40
Speaker 2: we need others around us in order to survive. And
37:44
Speaker 2: it's that's why it's so damaging solitary confinement. And we
37:48
Speaker 2: need other people to care about us, and we need
37:51
Speaker 2: that interaction and that support and that friendship. I think
37:54
Speaker 2: it's vital.
37:56
Speaker 1: Tell me about We'll give me a snap shot of
38:00
Speaker 1: the ten months that you spent in that room with
38:02
Speaker 1: your sisters.
38:04
Speaker 2: Actually, we had a lot of fun. We got up
38:07
Speaker 2: to a lot of mischief. We did a lot of naughty,
38:10
Speaker 2: bad things.
38:11
Speaker 1: Thanks God, what naughty things did you do?
38:15
Speaker 2: Oh? So well. We went on several hunger strikes together
38:18
Speaker 2: making demands, and we organized a joint hunger strack with
38:22
Speaker 2: the men's unit because my friend Sipitera, her husband was
38:25
Speaker 2: in the men's unit Uman he was his name, and
38:29
Speaker 2: we were able to pass a note to him during
38:31
Speaker 2: a family meeting that she had with him and got
38:33
Speaker 2: some recruited some of the men who were downstairs to
38:36
Speaker 2: join us, and we really freaked out the prison authorities
38:39
Speaker 2: by having about nine or ten person hunger strike all
38:42
Speaker 2: starting on the one day when none of us was
38:44
Speaker 2: supposed to be in contact with one another. So we
38:47
Speaker 2: did stuff like that, But we also managed to disrupt
38:51
Speaker 2: other prisoners interrogations by yelling and screaming outside their windows
38:55
Speaker 2: when they were happening. We sipeter broke into one of
38:59
Speaker 2: the extreme solitary cells and managed to go in when
39:03
Speaker 2: one of these prisoners was in there and give her
39:06
Speaker 2: a hug and sit on the floor with her for
39:08
Speaker 2: a couple of minutes before being extracted again. We would
39:12
Speaker 2: pass food and things to other prisoners. We would bribe
39:17
Speaker 2: some prison guards, sometimes with food of our own, to
39:21
Speaker 2: help to get them to turn a blind eye to
39:23
Speaker 2: us giving food items to other prisoners, this kind of thing.
39:28
Speaker 2: You know, we did a lot of resistance, and we
39:30
Speaker 2: occupied certain areas and refused to move, sat down on
39:33
Speaker 2: the ground, refused to leave until we got dragged away.
39:35
Speaker 2: And you know, we started resisting essentially and supported one
39:39
Speaker 2: another in these schemes and these ideas as well.
39:43
Speaker 1: Amazing, amazing, And so how did how did you get out?
39:48
Speaker 2: Like?
39:49
Speaker 1: What transpired? What was the situation around that? Oh?
39:54
Speaker 2: Gosh, So I was ultimately on trial and convicted and
39:57
Speaker 2: given a ten year prison sentence for espionage.
40:04
Speaker 1: I so fucking stupid anyway, I know.
40:11
Speaker 2: I know it would have been funny if it wasn't
40:13
Speaker 2: so upsetting, but yeah, So I spent then about seven
40:19
Speaker 2: months in solitary following that conviction, and then I was
40:22
Speaker 2: transferred to a public prison where I was living amongst
40:25
Speaker 2: you know, everyday criminals and other women, which was actually great.
40:28
Speaker 2: I much preferred being there. And at that time the
40:32
Speaker 2: Australian government had undertaken negotiations with directly with the Revolutionary Guard,
40:37
Speaker 2: course so not with the Uranian government, but with the
40:39
Speaker 2: group that had arrested me, And after a few false
40:42
Speaker 2: starts and things falling through, they managed to get a
40:46
Speaker 2: prisoner swap deal in place involving three convicted terrorists in
40:50
Speaker 2: Thailand who were also Revolutionary Guard members, and they were
40:55
Speaker 2: exchanged for me by the Australian government.
40:59
Speaker 1: When did you first have a conversation with an official
41:04
Speaker 1: from Australia.
41:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had an embassy visit at about the four
41:09
Speaker 2: month mark. The ambassador came into the prison and I
41:14
Speaker 2: had a sort of a twenty minute visit with him,
41:16
Speaker 2: but I wasn't allowed to discuss anything, certainly not my case.
41:19
Speaker 2: So it was sort of a health check or a
41:21
Speaker 2: proof of life or something. And I remember he was
41:24
Speaker 2: telling me some news from Australia, this kind of thing,
41:27
Speaker 2: telling me my family loved me and they cared about me,
41:29
Speaker 2: and etc. But we weren't really allowed to discuss any
41:31
Speaker 2: of the particulars of what was happening to me or
41:33
Speaker 2: my case. But I got banned from consular visits after
41:37
Speaker 2: a few months because of my resistance, so also got
41:41
Speaker 2: banned from family phone calls as a punishment. So I
41:44
Speaker 2: was cut off from the Australian authorities for long stretches
41:47
Speaker 2: of time and didn't have any news or any information whatsoever.
41:52
Speaker 1: So what was what was the date of your liberation?
41:57
Speaker 1: November twenty What date was it?
42:00
Speaker 2: Twenty fifth of November?
42:02
Speaker 1: Tell us about that day.
42:05
Speaker 2: I had been visited by the Ambassador Lindel Sachs forty
42:09
Speaker 2: eight hours earlier in the prison, and she had told
42:11
Speaker 2: me we're going to get you out in two days.
42:14
Speaker 2: But I didn't allow myself to believe it because it
42:18
Speaker 2: had been like this a few times before. I'd been
42:21
Speaker 2: told something's happening, I'm going to get out and it
42:23
Speaker 2: never did, never happen, So I didn't want to give
42:25
Speaker 2: myself false hope, but I knew that that was the day,
42:29
Speaker 2: and I'd been taken out of the prison a day
42:32
Speaker 2: earlier as well, to the headquarters of the REV Guards
42:34
Speaker 2: in downtown Tehran. I'd met the envoy that Australia had
42:40
Speaker 2: sent to negotiate my release. He was present there in
42:43
Speaker 2: those headquarters, so I understood that something very serious was
42:46
Speaker 2: afoot and it was likely or possible I could be released.
42:50
Speaker 2: But on the day I was supposed to leave at
42:53
Speaker 2: nine am, and I was still there at midday and
42:55
Speaker 2: myself so clearly something was going wrong, and I thought,
42:59
Speaker 2: oh God, here we go. It's going to fall through again.
43:01
Speaker 2: But eventually, eventually I was taken out of my cell.
43:05
Speaker 2: I was handcuffed, blindfolded, putting a car, and first forced
43:09
Speaker 2: to film a propaganda interview. By that point, I had
43:13
Speaker 2: taught myself Farsi, so I had to speak in Farsi
43:15
Speaker 2: to the camera in front of the prison gates, which
43:19
Speaker 2: was all ridiculous, and you know, I kind of did
43:21
Speaker 2: my best to sabotage the interview, but they sort of
43:23
Speaker 2: forced me to do that before they would let me go.
43:26
Speaker 2: And then they dropped me at the Ambassador's residence in Tehran,
43:30
Speaker 2: and from there me, the ambassador, and the envoy got
43:34
Speaker 2: into a car and we drove to the airport and
43:37
Speaker 2: I was put on I guess like a private plane
43:41
Speaker 2: in the rev Guards wing of Mehrabad Airport a few
43:45
Speaker 2: hours later and flown from the country.
43:47
Speaker 1: Where did you fly to?
43:49
Speaker 2: We actually landed in Doha in Qatar, first stayed overnight
43:53
Speaker 2: there in the airport, and then the next day continued
43:56
Speaker 2: on to Australia.
43:57
Speaker 1: What was that like getting on that plane flying out
44:00
Speaker 1: first time? When you're like clear, you're off the runway,
44:03
Speaker 1: you're three minutes in the air.
44:05
Speaker 2: Honestly, I was still on tenterhooks because I just until
44:09
Speaker 2: I left Iranian airspace, I just could not fully allow
44:13
Speaker 2: myself to believe that I was free. And the Red
44:17
Speaker 2: Guards had actually said to me a couple of times, Oh,
44:19
Speaker 2: we can let you get on a plane, but we
44:21
Speaker 2: can force it to turn around in the air and
44:23
Speaker 2: force you to land still, and if we want to
44:25
Speaker 2: bring you back, we will. And you know, I had
44:27
Speaker 2: all those thoughts in my head and was still kind
44:31
Speaker 2: of highly strong and stressed until I'd received word that
44:34
Speaker 2: we'd crossed out of Iranian airspace and then I could
44:36
Speaker 2: properly breathe again and understand, Yeah, it's really happened. You're free.
44:40
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah when you got back to Australia, and maybe
44:45
Speaker 1: you still don't feel normal, but I mean, it wasn't
44:48
Speaker 1: that long ago. Like it's not like it was twelve
44:50
Speaker 1: years ago. I mean it's not even two years yet. Yeah,
44:54
Speaker 1: you got back. It's less than like, what is it now,
44:57
Speaker 1: it's about twenty two months or something like that. How
45:01
Speaker 1: long before you kind of felt safe ish, normal ish
45:07
Speaker 1: and I don't know, less anxious or is it still
45:11
Speaker 1: a work?
45:13
Speaker 2: It's definitely still a journey. I'm on. I don't think
45:16
Speaker 2: I've got to the end of it yet. I was
45:18
Speaker 2: doing really well until the Melbourne lockdowns in twenty twenty one,
45:23
Speaker 2: because that just sort of felt like a curtailment of
45:26
Speaker 2: my freedom again. You know, I wanted to just be
45:28
Speaker 2: free to do what I wanted, and you know, a
45:30
Speaker 2: lot of my family live in New South Wales. I
45:32
Speaker 2: wanted to be able to see my family cross the border,
45:36
Speaker 2: you know, drive to see friends more than five kilometers away,
45:39
Speaker 2: and just be out and about enjoying my freedom. And
45:41
Speaker 2: that kind of knocked me around a bit those lockdowns,
45:45
Speaker 2: but yeah, I mean I think it took me some
45:47
Speaker 2: months to feel properly safe. I was very hyper vigilant
45:52
Speaker 2: and aware of security cameras in particular, but also anyone
45:57
Speaker 2: walking past or looking suspicious or might be hanging around
46:00
Speaker 2: a bit too much or you know. I was very
46:03
Speaker 2: uber vigilant and looking out for threats I guess, and
46:09
Speaker 2: not fully settled or feeling safe. And in a way,
46:14
Speaker 2: I still have that tendency a little bit, but it's
46:16
Speaker 2: definitely faded over time.
46:20
Speaker 1: Do you have PTSD? Do you think?
46:23
Speaker 2: No? I don't.
46:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, great, And so what do you do to what
46:30
Speaker 1: do you do for your mental health? I mean we
46:32
Speaker 1: all have mental health challenges pretty much everyone, but anxiety
46:36
Speaker 1: or overthinking or depression or that rumination do you how
46:41
Speaker 1: do you manage that day to day?
46:45
Speaker 2: Yeah?
46:45
Speaker 1: I have some of that.
46:47
Speaker 2: For me, the most effective way of managing that is
46:50
Speaker 2: just to be running in nature. I live in a
46:53
Speaker 2: very beautiful part of Victoria in the Dandenong Ranges and
46:56
Speaker 2: I have a beautiful nature reserved near my house and
47:00
Speaker 2: every day, especially during lockdown, I would run. I would
47:04
Speaker 2: see kangaroos every day, I would see lots of beautiful
47:07
Speaker 2: parrots and birds, and I would just be alone in
47:10
Speaker 2: the green amidst the trees, running and I found that
47:13
Speaker 2: really really soothing for my mental health, and it just
47:16
Speaker 2: allowed me to think, allowed me time to as I
47:19
Speaker 2: was running, to process things and just think, and alone
47:23
Speaker 2: time me time to just go through thoughts that I
47:25
Speaker 2: had in my head and make sense of them. So honestly,
47:29
Speaker 2: I think that being out in nature and having that, like, yeah,
47:34
Speaker 2: that time in nature to run and exercise each day
47:36
Speaker 2: was what got me.
47:37
Speaker 1: Through, to be honest, think about this. Think about you
47:40
Speaker 1: in a box, in a concrete box with no windows,
47:44
Speaker 1: with no stimulation, with no pillow, no blanket or no sheets,
47:51
Speaker 1: no toilet, in the worst environment, under the worst conditions,
47:57
Speaker 1: and then in the days running with the kangaroos. I mean,
48:03
Speaker 1: it's the opposite end of the scale, right, Yeah.
48:07
Speaker 2: And I'd been craving that, I think, you know, I'd
48:10
Speaker 2: been craving trees. I've been craving green because when you're
48:14
Speaker 2: in prison, especially in a big urban city. You know,
48:17
Speaker 2: there's so much smog in Tehran that often you wouldn't
48:20
Speaker 2: even see blue sky because there'd be so much epollution. Yeah,
48:24
Speaker 2: you know, I wanted to be in a forest or
48:28
Speaker 2: at a beach, or I wanted to be outside somewhere
48:31
Speaker 2: and not just be caged in concrete and iron bars
48:34
Speaker 2: and you know, rais of wire and this kind of
48:37
Speaker 2: thing all the time. So being able to just drink
48:41
Speaker 2: in that green and have that nature around me just, yeah,
48:44
Speaker 2: it meant the world to me, really helped with my recovery.
48:48
Speaker 1: Is there was there a spiritual kind of component to
48:52
Speaker 1: your existence, Kyli?
48:56
Speaker 2: Yes, I do think in a way you draw close
49:00
Speaker 2: to God when you go through such an experience. I
49:03
Speaker 2: mean I saw both. Most prisoners think about religion obviously
49:08
Speaker 2: when they're going through some sort of horrific ordeal. The
49:11
Speaker 2: ones who came in religious often either they would cling
49:16
Speaker 2: to the religion and pray five times a day and
49:18
Speaker 2: you know, like we're talking about Muslims here, so you
49:21
Speaker 2: know they have set prayers five times a day and
49:25
Speaker 2: do all the extra prayers and extra you know, fasting
49:29
Speaker 2: on Ramadan and everything, or they would become completely disillusioned
49:33
Speaker 2: with it and say, God, where are you? How did
49:36
Speaker 2: you let this happen to me? And you know, let
49:38
Speaker 2: it slide. So as a sort of a secular person.
49:43
Speaker 2: I definitely started praying more when I was in there
49:47
Speaker 2: than I ever would have outside.
49:50
Speaker 1: How are you if you crystal bullet or we step
49:53
Speaker 1: into an alternate reality and we go, let's say that
49:56
Speaker 1: never happened. How do you think you're a different person?
50:00
Speaker 1: And too, you know, the Kylie that would have been
50:04
Speaker 1: on that alternate path of your life minus this eight
50:09
Speaker 1: one hundred and four days of you know, misery.
50:14
Speaker 2: It's hard to say. I don't think that the fundamentals
50:17
Speaker 2: of who I am as a person have changed that dramatically.
50:21
Speaker 2: I think I've learned more about myself and who I
50:24
Speaker 2: am as a result of this trial. It's a trial
50:27
Speaker 2: that I had to go through in my life, and
50:29
Speaker 2: there have been blessings that have come out of that too.
50:32
Speaker 2: You know, I've learnt so much about myself and about
50:34
Speaker 2: human nature and about others and about the people around
50:38
Speaker 2: me as well. I mean, who has your back and
50:39
Speaker 2: who doesn't. When you go through such a such a
50:42
Speaker 2: traumatic experience, it tells you a lot. So I actually,
50:46
Speaker 2: you know, try and look on the bright side and
50:48
Speaker 2: see it as a positive thing. And I don't know
50:51
Speaker 2: if I've dramatically changed as a person. I think I'm
50:54
Speaker 2: more confident and less tolerant of people's bs, less some
50:59
Speaker 2: caring about what people think of me, more strident in
51:02
Speaker 2: expressing my opinions. But as a human being, I think
51:06
Speaker 2: I'm essentially the same.
51:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you have to do? You have to work
51:13
Speaker 1: at not being bitter, twisted, angry, residentful, mad, violent at
51:20
Speaker 1: the people who did all this bullshit to you.
51:23
Speaker 2: Oh? Definitely, And I'd say I probably am all of
51:26
Speaker 2: those things that you just said. It's more about trying
51:29
Speaker 2: to find a way, a positive direction to push it
51:32
Speaker 2: in rather than just lashing out at everyone around me
51:37
Speaker 2: and flailing about, screaming at the unfairness of it all.
51:42
Speaker 2: I'm trying to channel because i do have a lot
51:44
Speaker 2: of rage inside me. I'm very angry about what happened
51:46
Speaker 2: to me and certain individuals, organizations, and actors that were
51:51
Speaker 2: involved in it. And I'm trying to channel that anger
51:55
Speaker 2: and rage in a positive direction by trying to support
51:58
Speaker 2: the family members of others were unjustly held abroad, by
52:02
Speaker 2: trying to support the Uranian human rights movement. I'm in
52:05
Speaker 2: touch with a lot of the families and even some
52:08
Speaker 2: of my former prisoners themselves who have been let out
52:10
Speaker 2: trying to support them, and raising my voice and drawing
52:14
Speaker 2: attention to what Iran is doing and the phenomenon of
52:18
Speaker 2: arbitrary detention or hostage diplomacy as well. All these things
52:21
Speaker 2: are positive ways I can try and channel that anger,
52:24
Speaker 2: but I certainly do struggle sometimes with the resentment and
52:28
Speaker 2: the just heare the rage at it all?
52:31
Speaker 1: For sure? How dare you be human?
52:35
Speaker 2: And so?
52:37
Speaker 1: How dare you?
52:38
Speaker 2: So?
52:38
Speaker 1: Is this your mission? For now? Your mission is to
52:42
Speaker 1: bring light to this stuff and to speak to groups
52:45
Speaker 1: and to spread that message and I guess shine a
52:49
Speaker 1: light on all of this bad stuff that's happening.
52:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, i'd say so. I don't know if I have
52:54
Speaker 2: a specific mission, but I certainly feel like this is
52:57
Speaker 2: something that I should be doing. A lot of people
52:59
Speaker 2: have reached out to me, especially on the back of
53:02
Speaker 2: the book. We have several high profile Australians who are
53:07
Speaker 2: hostages abroad in foreign prisons in places like Chinami and
53:10
Speaker 2: mah Iraq, And there are also a lot of foreigners
53:14
Speaker 2: who are in Iran, and a lot of them have
53:17
Speaker 2: reached out to me, to their families, you know, in
53:19
Speaker 2: the UK and the US, in Germany and Austria and France, Belgium.
53:24
Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot and there's a strange community
53:27
Speaker 2: of us too, a strange community of return to hostages
53:31
Speaker 2: and very active campaigning families of current hostages, and we
53:34
Speaker 2: all know each other and swap ideas and talk and
53:37
Speaker 2: that's really nice as well.
53:39
Speaker 1: You know, I guess having that albeit not a not
53:43
Speaker 1: something anyone wants to have in common, but you have
53:45
Speaker 1: that in common, and so there's a I guess there's
53:48
Speaker 1: a connection that you can have with people who have
53:51
Speaker 1: got family members in that situation or who have been
53:54
Speaker 1: in that situation themselves that you can't have with others.
53:59
Speaker 2: Exactly. No one else understands.
54:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't.
54:02
Speaker 2: No one else can properly get what we went through
54:05
Speaker 2: in that place unless they've been through it. To no
54:08
Speaker 2: amount of me trying to explain or describe will ever
54:11
Speaker 2: really convey that to someone. But the others who were
54:15
Speaker 2: there with me, or people who've been through this prison
54:18
Speaker 2: system before me, they get it, they understand, and so
54:21
Speaker 2: it's actually really valuable to be able to talk with
54:23
Speaker 2: them as well in terms of healing and processing things.
54:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the best therapy for you, I would think,
54:29
Speaker 1: what about your sisters that you spent your cheeky rubble
54:33
Speaker 1: trouble making sisters that you spent ten months with. Do
54:36
Speaker 1: you ever talk to them?
54:39
Speaker 2: I have spoken to them, yes, but they are still
54:41
Speaker 2: in prison, so wow. A couple of the times they've
54:45
Speaker 2: been out because they got COVID or for some medical reason.
54:49
Speaker 2: But unfortunately, more than five years after they arrest Sipita
54:52
Speaker 2: and Nilufar and Sipiter's husband to mine and they're in
54:55
Speaker 2: a group of eight, they're all still in prison, and
54:58
Speaker 2: they're innocent, and you know, they're just some of the
55:01
Speaker 2: many thousands of innocent people that are Ryan's imprisoned because
55:05
Speaker 2: of political reasons or because of unfounded espionage allegations or whatever.
55:10
Speaker 2: So it's heartbreaking to me, really, and I think of
55:13
Speaker 2: them often.
55:15
Speaker 1: It is heartbreaking. So the name of your book is
55:18
Speaker 1: The Uncaged Sky, My eight hundred and four Days in
55:21
Speaker 1: an around in prison in all good bookstores and crap
55:25
Speaker 1: ones and online. Is there an audio version, Kylie?
55:31
Speaker 2: There is? Yes, I read it myself.
55:33
Speaker 1: In fact, yeah, I like it when authors do their
55:36
Speaker 1: own books because I kind of feel like I get
55:39
Speaker 1: to know the author. Thank you so much for having
55:43
Speaker 1: to chat with us. I could go on for another hour,
55:45
Speaker 1: because there are so many other things I would like
55:48
Speaker 1: to quiz you on in terms of the psychology and
55:51
Speaker 1: sociology of getting through this and self managing and navigating
55:55
Speaker 1: and moving forwards, but I don't want to take up
55:59
Speaker 1: too much your time. How do people find you or
56:03
Speaker 1: connect with you, or follow you or pay you an
56:06
Speaker 1: obscene amounts? Come and talk to their group.
56:10
Speaker 2: You can contact me on Twitter or Instagram. It's Twitter
56:14
Speaker 2: is at k Moore Gilbert. Instagram is Kylie Moore Gilbert.
56:19
Speaker 2: I have a publicly available email address on my Twitter account,
56:22
Speaker 2: Kylie MG atprotonmail dot com.
56:25
Speaker 1: Awesome, well we will. We will promote your book bya
56:29
Speaker 1: our when we put out all this to the world
56:33
Speaker 1: once again. Gain everyone the Young Cage sky my eight
56:35
Speaker 1: hundred and four days in an Iranian prison. I'm going
56:38
Speaker 1: to buy the book on What's that thing I have?
56:44
Speaker 1: Melissa Audible, Thank you Audible. I'm going to buy it
56:48
Speaker 1: on Audible when I get off here, and I'm going
56:50
Speaker 1: to start listening today. So we appreciate you, Kylie, thank
56:54
Speaker 1: you so much. Stay there. We'll say goodbye, affair, but
56:56
Speaker 1: thanks for being on the new project. Where really glad you?
57:00
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having me on Craig. It's been
57:02
Speaker 2: a pleasure.
57:03
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thanks Melissa, thank you both. Oh my goodness,
57:07
Speaker 1: what a story.
57:07
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry you had to go through that, but
57:09
Speaker 2: thank you so much for sharing it. Appreciate it.
57:12
Speaker 1: Thanks everyone, Love you.