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Kylie Moore-Gilbert

Kylie Moore-Gilbert

Kylie Moore-Gilbert is a research fellow in Security Studies at Macquarie University and a regular columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. She is the author of The Uncaged Sky: My 804 Days in an Iranian Prison.

Women hold posters as thousands of people gather in Enghelab Square, Tehran, after Iranian state media confirmed the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

My cell guard’s tears put my jaw on the floor. Why ‘good’ Australians mourn a torturer

We have experienced the trauma of Islamist-inspired terror on our shores. How can memorials for a vicious mass killer align with Australian values?

  • Kylie Moore-Gilbert

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A protester burns an image of Ali Khamenei during a protest outside the Iranian Embassy on January 14.

Why Iranians are celebrating being bombed

Iranians are not naive about the geopolitical realities of the region. But they are exhausted, and they are desperate.

  • Kylie Moore-Gilbert
The ‘sensible’ centre.

I’m a swinging voter. Here’s why prospect of a new centre-right party has me excited

A new centrist party wouldn’t have to do much to win my vote – a good start would be recruiting people who aren’t in bed with big business or corrupt unions.

  • Kylie Moore-Gilbert
Protesters take to the streets in Tehran on January 9 in an image that was widely circulated on social media.

I thought I was in control of the algorithm. Then came the dreams of blood-soaked streets

I am beginning to understand the self-radicalising power of the bubble, after I was sucked into a doomscroll of violence.

  • Kylie Moore-Gilbert

All the conditions are there for Iran’s regime to fall – except one

Defections from the upper echelons are essential if a revolutionary movement is to succeed. Western countries can play a role in helping make this happen.

  • Kylie Moore-Gilbert
The mass uprising against the Islamic Republic is rooted in the mistakes of Ayatollah Khamenei.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is crumbling. Miscalculations have pushed it to this terminal frenzy

Syria’s Assad, who had fought a brutal war against his people for 14 years, fell in less than 11 days. Ayatollah Khamenei faces a similar fate after turning his nation into a powder keg.

  • Kylie Moore-Gilbert
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The mood on Iran’s streets seems to be desperation rather than hope

This latest round of popular protest was triggered by a catastrophic collapse of the Iranian rial, which has lost more than 50 per cent of its value against the US dollar in the past six months.

  • Kylie Moore-Gilbert
Some prisoners would mark the days off with scratches on the wall.

When I was behind bars, time stopped. But you could never hide from the new year

When I was first arrested in Iran and thrown into a solitary confinement cell in Evin prison I would carve a line for each day into the soft plaster of the wall and try to work backwards to figure out the date.

  • Kylie Moore-Gilbert
A man mourns during a menorah lighting ceremony earlier this month at the floral memorial for victims of of the Bondi Beach attack.

There are three kinds of antisemitism – each needs to be dealt with differently

There appears to be no singular, monolithic antisemitism festering in Australia but rather multiple different mutations of this ancient virus.

  • Kylie Moore-Gilbert

Five years on, Australia is calling out the thugs who jailed me for what they are

Last week I quietly marked the fifth anniversary of my freedom from prison in Iran. November 25 was on the surface a day like any other, but to me, this date is more significant than my birthday.

  • Kylie Moore-Gilbert