Anglo-Australian researcher Kylie Moore-Gilbert, imprisoned in Iran, is in good health " given her situation, " her family said on Sunday in a statement denying rumors that she had attempted suicide.
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Human rights defenders in Iran said a few days ago that the professor of Islamic studies at the University of Melbourne, sentenced to ten years in prison for espionage, had tried several times to end her life.
In a statement issued by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, his family claims to have spoken to him " repeatedly " in recent weeks. " She denied having attempted suicide or having been tortured, " said her family. " She looks healthy, given her situation ."
Her arrest was confirmed in September 2019, but her family said she had been incarcerated several months before. She has always denied being a spy.
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In letters smuggled out of prison, and published in January in the English press, Kylie Moore-Gilbert wrote that she had spent ten months in solitary confinement, which had " seriously damaged " her health. " I think I have serious psychological problems ," she wrote. " We do not accept the accusation against her and continue to make every effort to get her back to Australia as soon as possible, " a spokesman for the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Kylie Moore-Gilbert is detained in Evin prison in Tehran, where the Anglo-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was imprisoned before being placed on probation because of the coronavirus pandemic. Iran claims to have released around 100,000 prisoners, including a thousand foreigners, in order to decrease its prison population during the pandemic.
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