An Australian jurist held in Iran for
two years told ANSA in an interview Monday that Cecilia Sala, a
Roman journalist arrested in Tehran three days after a
Swiss-Iranian businessman was detained on US drone trafficking
charges in Milan this month, must be strong and Rome must
negotiate to secure her release.
"Italy has no alternative, it cannot extradite (Mohammad)
Abedini (Najafabadi) and must find an agreement with Iran to
have Cecilia released," said Kylie Moore Gilbert, who was
imprisoned in Iran from September 2018 to November 2020 on
charges of espionage.
"It is the best thing to do now. And she has only one option: to
resist and be strong".
Moore Gilbert was held in solitary confinement in sector 2A of
the notorious Evin Prison, the same one where Sala is being held
in Tehran.
Moore Gilbert was freed after Thailand released three Iranian
citizens.
"The prisoner exchange was in fact the only option in my case
but also in the cases of the Dutchman Johann Floderus and the
Belgian Olivier Vandecasteele: the Iranians look for people of
certain nationalities because they have more value, they are
more useful for applying pressure and trying to get what they
want. It happened to me, it happened to Cecilia".
Moore Gilbert does not hide, however, that, even if the
imperative is "to save the citizens and save Cecilia", giving in
to Iranian pressure means "strengthening the authoritarian
regime of the Islamic Republic whose consensus is increased by
these results that are seen as political successes". Moreover,
she said "hostage diplomacy is encouraged which instead should
be fought by the West".
Kylie knows what the hell of Evin means. A hell that she had to
know for a very long time learning to take countermeasures to
survive.
"It's been over six years since I was detained in Evin and yet I
still remember being captured, blindfolded and put in a car
between two female guards," she explains.
"When I got to the prison they took me to the magistrate's
office. They didn't translate anything for me, I didn't
understand anything, I didn't understand Farsi. They ordered my
detention in Sector 2A of Evin which is run by the Revolutionary
Guards. I was shaken, shocked, I started crying hysterically. At
that point they threw me out of the magistrate's office and I
found myself crying in the corridor on a bench watched over by a
guard."
Evin, Kylie recalls, "is very high walls and barbed wire and the
constant terror of wondering 'now what will they do to me? Will
they sentence me to death? Will they kill me?'". From all this
violence and fear "you can only get out by staying strong,
without ever giving in, but these are things you understand
later: when you're in there, with constant psychological
torture, you don't have much choice and you have to keep going.
"Even if you don't have the strength, you can't do anything
else. I decided not to ask myself any more questions, not to
think about the past or the future and to concentrate on the
moment I was living by choosing, for example, to marry the
routine of prison. "My future time ended the following day at
the latest" All things that Kylie learned over time, two years
of isolation.
"The first times are the hardest because they put all kinds of
pressure on you, they try to weaken you psychologically to bring
you to the breaking point during interrogations but you have to
get through it and get out alive", she says.
"For this reason, I ideally tell Cecilia to resist, to be
strong, and she will discover that she is stronger than she
could have imagined. From these experiences you come out better,
more aware of your limits and your qualities. Evin is hell but
you also grow in hell - says Kylie who adds - and, even if you
are a prisoner, you can choose to never give in: never make
false confessions, never give in to pressure during
interrogations.
"Giving in only serves to give them the opportunity to raise the
stakes. Cecilia is not alone, her country is working for her".
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