The isolation cell pushed the world to despair: “I thought I was going to commit suicide” | Abroad

“You’re crazy.” Moore Gilbert told Sky News Australia, “He did a lot of damage, he hurt physically.” She was trapped in a four-square-meter cell for seven months with a phone just to communicate with the guards.

The Middle East expert was arrested in Iran in September 2018 while he was there attending a conference. Nine months later, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage. While imprisoned, she resisted, among other things, her hunger strike.

“I could have escaped like this.”

In the interview, Moore Gilbert said that she tried to escape once. “I said to myself, why not? I have nothing to lose anyway.” Once she got up on the wall, she decided to go back to her cell anyway. I could have escaped to the nearest town, but I don’t speak the local language and I was wearing prison clothes. I was afraid of the consequences if I was caught. “

Moore Gilbert was released in 2020 as part of a prisoner exchange. Three Iranians arrested abroad were returned to Iran. In February, the Netherlands signed an initiative against this type of so-called “hostage diplomacy”. Canada took an initiative against the detention of foreign citizens in order to exert diplomatic pressure on other countries.