Kylie Moore-Gilbert

Kylie is a committed advocate for Australians wrongfully detained abroad, including victims of state hostage-taking. Following her own experiences as a diplomatic hostage in Iran from 2018-2020, Kylie has used her voice to speak out for other unjustly detained prisoners, and has advocated for Australia to improve its policies in seeking to tackle and disincentivise the practice.

A writer and academic, Kylie’s work centres on democratisation in the Middle East. In 2022 she published a best-selling memoir titled 'The Uncaged Sky,' which draws on her own lived experience to examine the phenomenon of wrongful detention. Kylie has provided testimony on the issue to Australian, British and Canadian parliamentary enquiries, has consulted to the Australian Defence Forces and a number of NGOs working in this space, and acts as an advocate and adviser to families of currently detained Australian and foreign citizens.

Kylie holds a BA (Hons) and MA from the University of Cambridge and a PhD from the University of Melbourne. She is currently a visiting fellow at the University of Sydney’s Centre for International Security Studies, where she gave the prestigious 2022 Michael Hintze Lecture titled 'Hostage Diplomacy: Who’s in Control?' Kylie regularly speaks on issues such as human rights, freedom of speech and wrongful detention to events and organisations including the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, the Sydney Opera House, PEN, the Capital Punishment Justice Project and the Festival of Dangerous Ideas.