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- [00:04]
A
When Australian academic Kylie Moore Gilbert was released from an Iranian prison 5 1/2 years ago, the country celebrated. After more than two years of psychological torture, she was free. Then reality set in. I'm Samantha Salinger Morris, and you're listening to the Morning Edition from the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. Today, Kylie Moore Gilbert, research fellow in Security Studies at Macquarie University, on the toll that prison took on her personal life and the changes the Australian government needs to make to better support hostages as cases of hostage taking are on the Rise. It's May 5th. Welcome, Kylie, back to the podcast.
- [00:48]
B
Thanks for having me back.
- [00:50]
A
Well, I'm so looking forward to speaking to you because you have just guest edited an academic journal on hostage diplomacy. It comes out and I think it puts the case forward that countries, including Australia, need to perhaps rethink that, the way they conduct hostage diplomacy. So I have to ask, why did you even take on this project? Because you are a full time academic at Macquarie University. You are the mother of two small children, and presumably this might even trigger some traumatic memories of your own. So why do it?
- [01:19]
B
Well, I think the last point that you meant is relevant. I did it because it is a personal pursuit of mine to understand what happened to me. And of course, I was imprisoned in Iran for more than two years about five and a half years ago. I, I returned from that experience and as an academic, I wanted to understand what happened to me from an academic perspective. And I also wanted to know what had been written on this phenomenon before or during my incarceration and where the holes and the gaps in the knowledge were and what data we've got out there. And for me, it was, it was a personal journey as well as obviously a professional one in my job, in my, you know, capacity as an academic, to put out academic publications. And this kind of thing is kind of part of the job description, but this topic area is intensely personal and I felt that I had almost unfinished business. I wanted to understand where what happened to me sat within those broader trends and patterns and to what extent it's almost not predictable, but conceivable that it could happen again to others. And in which case are we able to somehow prevent that?
- [02:27]
A
Okay. Well, let's start by getting into your own experience about how the Australian government actually helped secure your release. Can you just begin, I guess, by telling us how did they secure your release? Because it was complicated, it was prolonged. And I think you had some issues, it's fair to say, with perhaps some of the way in which it was done. But just tell Us, I guess first off, about the deal that was made to secure your release, it seems like
- [02:50]
B
quite a sophisticated diplomatic deal and all credit, you know, goes to DFAT and goes to the envoy, Nick Warner, and to others, including the politicians behind the scenes who made this happen and pulled it all together. Our diplomats in, in places like Iran, but also Thailand and other countries as well, were involved. And basically a deal was made directly with my captors who are the irgc, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. So not strictly the Iranian government, but an armed group affiliated to the government that took me hostage. They wanted their own members to be exchanged for me. And there were these three irgc, I don't even know what to call them, like failed terrorists who had attempted this attack in Thailand but were thwarted by the Thai authorities. They were attempting to attack the Israeli diplomatic mission in Bangkok, I believe. And the, the IIGC negotiated to have these three goons released and sent back to Tehran in exchange for my freedom.
- [03:58]
A
At the time, Scott Morrison was Prime Minister, I believe, when, when this negotiation was happening, Marise Payne, I think, was the foreign Minister and they really strongly advocated for what's called quiet diplomacy. And I believe you've been a bit vocal about disagreeing with the way that the Australian government advocated for quiet diplomacy. So can you just start by telling us what is quiet diplomacy and why you think it could be problem? How, how perhaps it was, you think, not ideal in your situation.
- [04:27]
B
So quiet diplomacy is just old school diplomacy behind the scenes, person to person, not, you know, through a megaphone or through the media or through publicity or campaigning, but diplomats talking to diplomats in their quiet diplomatic fashion and attempting to come to agreements or arrangements on that basis. And I'm not saying that I, I think in every case it's unwarranted. I think there really is a place for that kind of traditional diplomacy. I just think that having a blanket policy of always quiet diplomacy, no matter what the facts of the case, even if media attention could be useful. Having a kind of a knee jerk response of denying that as a tool and sticking to what we've always done, the quiet approach. I think, you know, my argument is more nuance is needed there and more appreciation of the role of media as a tool in the toolkit. And I understand the, the instinct of government bureaucrats and politicians to keep the media out of these really sensitive cases because, you know, it's fraught with risk. I mean, certain details about the negotiations could be published that could jeopardize those negotiations, for example, or somebody's family member could Go AWOL and start lambasting the detaining entity or government in the media and you know, getting their guard up and making it doubly difficult to reach an agreement. But the media is a tool that can also be useful. It can also, you know, put forward would the government's position or send messages or have a narrative promoted that the government might want the other side to digest without having been told in a direct fashion in those behind the scenes negotiations, for example. And in my case, you know, I found it was protective for me that transparency and that pressure applied by the media was protective in my, in terms of securing my human rights in prison and allowing me, for example, access to doctors when I was sick or unwell, this kind of thing, preventing of the more egregious abuses.
- [06:29]
A
And so do you look back now and, and wish that the government had allowed more public outcry about your detention earlier? Because you certainly have described your detention in the Iranian prison for 804 days as a nightmare. It sounds like the psychological torture you've described at some point as being even worse than the physical torture. So do you look back and just think, wow, the Australian government maybe made it more prolonged than it needed to be in sort of cracking down on the outcry?
- [07:01]
B
So difficult to say, you know, I am super grateful for everything they did for me. But I did want it to be public. In fact, I expected it to be. And I, I was telling my family to go to the media from a few months into my incarceration because I understood that it would help me from my own position with my interlocutors, with my captors inside the prison. In a way, they also expected it to be made public. I think this is a playbook that the Iranians have used many times, particularly the IRGC before. You know, the precedent is that there's never really been any downside for the prisoner in terms of mistreatment or anything like that when it, or if it goes public. It's not that they beat you up or something if you're suddenly being covered in the news media. So it was intensely frustrating to have my expressed desires denied by consular officials or my family because they thought they knew best when I sort of wanted to make those decisions in my own life as well.
- [08:01]
A
Now, I want to ask you about one of the papers in the Journal. This one's written by Alice Jill Edwards. She's the UN special reporter on torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatments or punishments. And she makes the case that hostage taking can be A form of torture. So I wanted to know if that was your experience. I mean, you've described it as going crazy inside your own head. Can you just, I guess, tell the listeners and myself what, what is that like, you know, what sort of voices inside your head or feelings are you battling in order to stay sane in that sort of circumstance?
- [08:35]
B
For me, it depends on the period of time we're talking about. I spent cumulatively 12 months in solitary confinement, but I was in the sort of psychological torture solitary confinement at the very beginning, throughout the time I spent being interrogated, so that was about four to five months. I had more intense interrogations at the. The onset of my detention, and the first month was the worst because I was put in this tiny windowless box, two and a half by two and a half meters squared. Absolutely nothing to do, not even furniture, no bedding, nothing. No objects to even look at, look at other than a telephone on the wall for calling the guards. And obviously the guards didn't speak English, so I had no method of communicating with them anyway. So this was, you know, the complete sensory deprivation and the suddenness of it. We can't even sit within our own thoughts for very long anymore these days. And so going from that kind of situation to suddenly being put in this solitary confinement tiny box, it really, you know, your brain just can't cope with the sudden shift and the deprivation of all kind of external stimuli. And you do go a bit, bit crazy inside your own head. You know, your brain's flicking around, gripping at anything, grasping at anything it can to hold its attention. And you also have to sit in some really uncomfortable thoughts. And I mean, for me, I didn't know. I didn't speak Farsi at the time, and I had no idea what was going on or who had taken me prisoner, where I was, what would happen to me, what would they do to me? So I had fears about the future, I had ruminations about the past and regrets. Everything I'd done to get me to that point. And, you know, you're not in a great mental space to begin with, and then being deprived of all that stimulation, it, you know, it's psychological torture.
- [10:31]
A
And so could this help in some way? Like, how could this help, you know, if. If this is sort of a more recognized form of torture or that it could be a more recognized form of torture? Could this help governments to get hostages out? Like, how could this be helpful on a practical level?
- [10:48]
B
And I think another paper also looks at reparations for victims and makes the contrast with victims of Terrorism, as opposed to former hostages and wrongful detainees. If you look at Australia or other Western states, the way in which we have recognised that restitution for victims of terrorism is necessary, as opposed to that for victims of hostage taking or other international crimes. There's a real gap there. Victims of torture as well. I mean, I think there is recognition that if somebody's been physically tortured that certain supports need to be in place to help that person reintegrate into society afterwards and support them in an ongoing fashion. But that doesn't exist. Really? That awareness doesn't exist, certainly, I don't think in Australia, but in most Western countries, because hostage taking is such a crime, which mercifully, you know, doesn't affect great numbers of people, although it is rising, unfortunately. Certainly state hostage taking is on the rise. I think psychological torture is also underlooked, underappreciated.
- [11:52]
A
And so is that borne out by your own experience? Did you have a distinct lack of support or less support than you needed to sort of re enter society? And did you get any form of restitution? Did you want a form of restitution and. Or justice that you just didn't get?
- [12:09]
B
Absolutely. To both those points, I didn't get any support and I have no recourse to restitution or justice. And both of those points are very important. I mean, on the justice point, there have been attempts overseas by former victims to use international legal mechanisms to seek justice, but unfortunately, most of these mechanisms rely upon your nation's state, your government, to seek that justice on your behalf. And governments are just unwilling. The only country that's an exception to that is the us, where they have a provision that if the state is recognized as a sponsor of terrorism, then victims can pursue them in an American court. So it's a very complicated process and one which Australia has no legal structure around at all. Foreign.
- [13:03]
A
We'll be right back. So it makes me wonder whether you feel failed, I guess, by the Australian government, whether, you know, for not enabling any restitution or justice, or not giving you any support on reentering society. Because I know you said in an interview that your experience in prison changed everything, Quote, my career, my relationships with loved ones. Nothing was left unaffected. So perhaps you can just tell us, I guess, how affected, you know, how are your relationships with your loved ones affected?
- [13:35]
B
Now, I think that we need to appreciate that when a catastrophic incident like this happens in someone's life, there are ripple effects. It affects everybody around you, it's not just you. And from talking with many other hostages, and their families. It's clear that sometimes the impact on family is even greater than it is on the hostage themselves. Because if they don't know what's happening to you, well, they, it's that lack of information. They, they imagine the very worst. And often they have an even more volatile relationship with their own government than you might have because they're the main interlocutor in contact with government. They have might have an even greater sense of betrayal than the hostage themselves. Or, you know, I've seen, unfortunately, family members of wrongful detainees and hostages from all kinds of places, not just Australia, kind of spiral into all kinds of very negative headspaces, including embracing conspiracy theory thinking. So in my case, you know, there was no package of support at all. I think, I don't blame the government necessarily. I think it just sort of fell between the cracks. DFAT was the lead on bringing me home, but obviously DFAT doesn't operate inside the country. So then, you know, their job was done, they brought you home, big success, it's over, you know, and there was not that sort of understanding that it, you need to be then passed on to another agency perhaps, and often that could be a state government agency. So we really hope that anyone else who's brought home in the future will actually get access to that support.
- [15:11]
A
And just curious, without that support, like, what did it look like? Were you walking around, you know, like a zombie? Like, I can't even imagine how you would reintegrate in society, let alone reestablish your relationships with your existing loved ones, form new relationships, become a parent, you know, how hard was that? In the absence of proper trauma, informed care,
- [15:36]
B
I don't know if I've done a good job of that, frankly. I mean, I, I, my relationship with my family is not particularly great, I have to say, but I was very fortunate to meet my current partner, Sammy, and to have two kids of my own. Which, you know, it was something that I, when I was in prison, I thought about a lot. I was in my mid-30s. Would I have the opportunity to have children if I had to serve my 10 year prison sentence in full? Wouldn't have been possible. I would have been in my 40s by the time I, I was released and I was, you know, I got divorced. Unfortunately my marriage broke down as a result of my imprisonment and when I came out, I had to file for divorce. So that was an extra layer of complication. Luckily I was able to meet my current partner relatively quickly and have two children again relatively quickly. Maybe too quickly. I Don't know, but I'm very grateful that I have them and they're a grounding force as well. Nothing sort of snaps you out of your self absorption than having two small children who constantly have their needs, you know, prioritized over yours. But yeah, I mean it's, it's an ongoing process.
- [16:53]
A
Now I want to get back to, I guess the governmental side of things because a Senate inquiry into the wrongful detention of Australian citizens overseas handed a report to the government right in December 2024. You and I were speaking before we started recording. I think that you, you expressed some frustration that the government hasn't responded to that. So tell us about that. And what are the top recommendations in that report that you think God, our government needs to, to adopt in your perspective?
- [17:19]
B
Some of it's a really obvious kind of no brainer stuff that people would expect would already exist, which is one, when you're looking at consular cases, apply a definition or some kind of criteria to those cases to determine who is wrongfully imprisoned or has, you know, a question mark, at least a somewhat dodgy incarceration or a dodgy situation that might warrant a second look. You know, RA rather than everyone who's been imprisoned in every country in the world from Australia gets put in one basket. And maybe something will drift to the top if a particular consular case worker wants to flag it. But that's a personality driven thing. Cases absolutely get overlooked and people fall between the cracks. You know, most people would assume they already do that, but they don't. We need to have one point person in DFAT or in government that is responsible for these cases. Again, you would assume there would be already, but there is not. So both Canada and the US have instituted this. Australia needs somebody who can pick up, pick up the phone and be the point person talking to Canada's envoy, talking to the US envoy, getting tips, exchanging info, maybe asking for help triangulating data, this kind of thing. I mean it's really needed and at the very least it's the buck stops on that person's desk. And so it prevents some of the buck passing and the bureaucratic wrangling that's unfortunately occurred in other cases.
- [18:47]
A
And so these changes are arguably needed now more than ever because you've written that hostage taking is on the rise. So why is that?
- [18:55]
B
The disintegration of the international rules based order. I think this kind of might is right. Geopolitics that's emerging where countries flout international norms and laws because they can. And countries like Iran, Russia, Venezuela, China, that sort of repeat perpetrator states of this, they don't care about international law. Sure. But also they're more brazen now because that international rules based order is disintegrating because countries including the United States, you know, can feel that they can act with impunity and do whatever they like. These countries are emboldened now. Iran, Venezuela, etc, China, they're emboldened to do, undertake similar practices and people get caught in the crossfire. I mean the innocent people are taken hostage and instrumentalized as bargaining chips and nothing is done to disincentivize or punish that. So they, it's an, it's a signal to do more of it because it works. The Iranians have received several payments, vast billions of dollars, vast sums of money from the US and UK governments in exchange for hostages. So, you know, it's a lucrative process.
- [20:06]
A
Well, let's get into one of the legislative reforms that this journal that you've edited sort of proposes because this is one writer who points to a Canadian bill that would allow Canada to offer monetary awards and, or refugee protection to foreign nationals who help secure the release of detainees. So do you think that Australia should consider offering this?
- [20:28]
B
This is a really, really interesting proposal and I think we really need out of the box thinking here. We need to have these kinds of ideas floating around. And it is controversial to offer refugee protection or other immigration status to people who assist in freeing hostages or wrongful detainees because obviously those people are probably going to be within the system that's taken those hostages in the first place. You know, we take Iran for example. If you're an Iranian, a senior Iranian official working in the Islamic Republic who covertly provides information to Canada to help them get their hostage back. Well, you're giving immigration status to an official from a nasty authoritarian regime who may have done other nasty things in their own own past. That's a controversial move. It's not set in stone. I think it would be assessed on a case by case basis. But it is an innovative way of trying to incentivize people from within those regimes to help you, you know, get, get control of your hostages and your detainees. Again, it didn't pass the Canadian parliament, but I think it's going to go up again. I don't think the issue is over. It was opposed by Canada's version of
- [21:40]
A
defat and just one follow up on that with that idea of potentially offering refugee status or visas, excuse me, to people who do have information on a hostage and help with the release. What would you say to Listeners who hear that and they're thinking, wait a minute, we're trying to crack down on extremism here, especially in the wake of the Bondi massacre in December. This is really scary. You know, that that person. We might be welcoming a person in a really nasty system into our own country. Like, what would you say to people who are listening and thinking that I
- [22:09]
B
would also be concerned about that. I mean, I'm very concerned about Iranian Islamic Republic officials, intelligence operatives, sympathisers in Australia. Unfortunately, there seem to be quite a lot of them that have flown under the radar. It endangers me and anyone else, mostly the Iranian Australian community that's been very vocal against that regime. And we see it with China, obviously, as well, and a number of other regimes, too, that operate here in Australia. So the last thing you want to do is. Would be to insert somebody like that into our country unnecessarily. So I think, you know, they would have to be vetted by Azio or whatever the equivalent is very closely. I think it's encouraging defections. Essentially. You're encouraging some of these people to defect and give you their information, probably beyond just on the hostage or the hostage taking, but all their intelligence or information they might have. And in exchange for that, you're offering them protection. We already do that when people want to defect. I understand. So this is just sort of an additional layer specific to hostage taking on top of that.
- [23:19]
A
Thank you so much, Kylie, for your time.
- [23:22]
B
Thanks so much for having me on. It's been great foreign. News today.
- [23:36]
A
Scientists have developed a miracle food for people suffering from malnutrition. TikTok's Australian operation has surged towards $1 billion in revenue despite mounting regulatory pressure. And a prime suspect and motive has been identified over a spate of mystery attacks that have terrified Melbourne's hospitality scene in the last three months. You can read more at the age.com or smh.com Today's episode was produced by Josh Towers. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills, and our podcasts are overseen by Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. If you like our show, follow the Morning Edition and leave a review for us on Apple or Spotify. Thanks for listening.