Ex-IRGC Detainee Criticises Australia’s Backing of UN Role for Iran

Kylie Moore-Gilbert was detained in Iran for two years, and says Australia should not have backed Iran’s election to a committee at the UN.

Kylie Moore-Gilbert from the University of Melbourne has reportedly been sentenced to 10 years behind bars in Tehran, Iran, in September 2019. AAP Image/Supplied by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who was detained by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in 2018 for alleged spying, has come out questioning the Australian Labor government’s decision to back Iran’s latest appointment in the United Nations (UN).

On April 10, the IRGC was put forward to the U.N. Committee for Program and Coordination, which oversees policy decisions on women’s rights, human rights, disarmament, and terrorism prevention.

The committee is made up of around 34 member states at a time.

Iran was placed on a regional nomination slate within the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), through the Western European and Others Group, a bloc that also includes Australia, France, Canada, and Spain.

Membership in the committee is generally determined through regional slates, meaning countries are often appointed as part of broader package agreements rather than standalone political endorsements.

Australia designated the IRGC a “state sponsor of terrorism” in 2025 following reports it had orchestrated two anti-Semitic attacks including one on a Sydney restaurant and the fire-bombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne.

Former Detainee Says Decision Baffling

Moore-Gilbert, an Australian-British author and Middle East expert, who was freed after two years in IRGC captivity during an international prisoner exchange, said she could not understand the decision.

“Not that the U.N. is of much consequence these days, but I am nevertheless genuinely baffled,” she said.

Moore-Gilbert also responded to an X post by former SBS anchor Mary Kostakidis who said the “only sensible thing for the world to do is back Iran.”

In response, Moore-Gilbert said the Islamic regime was “responsible for some of the most egregious human rights atrocities of recent memory.

“Hatred for America and Western imperialism trumps everything else it seems, including massacring tens of thousands of unarmed protesters, hanging children, raping women in prisons, ethnic cleansing of minorities, funding terrorism.”

UN Critic Takes Issue With Stance

Meanwhile, the move by developed governments was also criticised by Canadian lawyer Hillel Neuer, who serves as executive director of the Geneva-based U.N. Watch, which scrutinises the global body.

“The same governments that always tell us to listen to the U.N. just nominated the Islamic Republic of Iran to a U.N. committee that meets soon to address women’s rights, human rights, and terrorism prevention,” he said.

“They also elected China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Sudan and Saudi Arabia to the U.N. committee that oversees the work of human rights groups at the U.N.

“We ask Canada, France, Spain, Norway, the Netherlands, Australia, the UK, Switzerland, Austria, and Finland: have you no shame?”

Neuer said the United States was on its own in objecting to the nominations.

“The worst regimes in the world that jail dissidents now get to decide which organisations get a voice at the U.N.,” he said.

The Epoch Times contacted the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for comment.