27-Nov-20: Are Australian news reports whitewashing who the Iranian prisoners freed by Thailand really are?

Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert in an Iranian news clip [Image Source]

There's been a major development in a long-running battle to save an innocent female hostage from the malevolent rulers of Iran. 

This is from Australia's national broadcaster:

British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert is now departing Iran after spending more than 800 days in prison. Two videos released by Iranian state television showed the Melbourne University Middle East specialist in transit, with the latest video showing her boarding what appears to be an Australian Government-chartered jet. Dr Moore-Gilbert was sent to Tehran's Evin Prison in September 2018 and sentenced to 10 years on espionage charges — which she has always denied. International pressure on Iran to secure Dr Moore-Gilbert's release escalated in recent months, following reports that her health was deteriorating during long stretches of solitary confinement and that she had been transferred to the notorious Qarchak Prison, east of Tehran... "Kylie Moore-Gilbert has been released in exchange for three Iranian men — who are they?"

Since this came out, Dr Moore-Gilbert has thankfully arrived home safely ["Kylie Moore-Gilbert arrives in Australia after being released from Iranian prison", ABC, November 26, 2020]

 

According to a BBC news report last night:

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison described her release as a miracle, saying she seemed in good spirits when he spoke to her. "The injustice of her detention and her conviction, Australia has always rejected, and I'm just so pleased that Kylie's coming home," he told local network Nine. Mr Morrison declined to comment on whether a swap had taken place, but said no-one had been released in Australia. His government has been silent on the circumstances surrounding the deal, and some observers have said it could encourage Iran, which is accused of "hostage diplomacy". According to Thai authorities, the three Iranians were not exchanged with anyone.

But there's a problem - one that has familiar echoes to it.

Mainstream Australian media reports like the one in Melbourne's The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald have answered the ABC headline's question ("Kylie Moore-Gilbert has been released in exchange for three Iranian men — who are they?"). But in doing so, they significantly mischaracterize who the three Iranians imprisoned by Thailand, and now released, actually were and are. 

The Australian dailies report that the three Iranian convicted terrorists, Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, Saeid Moradi and Mohammad Khazaei

"were all detained in Thailand on charges of having planned to bomb the capital, Bangkok, in 2012 that authorities said was intended to target Israeli diplomats... News of the exchange was first broken by Iran's Young Journalist Club, a news website affiliated to state television in Iran, which trumpeted the release of the three men who faced "baseless charges" and were "exchanged for a dual national spy named Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who worked for the Zionist regime".

Detained? Horse manure. 

Far from just being detained, those Iranians were arrested, tried, convicted on terrorism charges and imprisoned by Thailand. See Reuters, August 22, 2013. 

Prior to their convictions but after they were arrested, we wrote here nearly eight years ago about the terrorism for which they had been taken into custody: "16-Feb-12: Bangkok: So what actually happened there on Tuesday?"

"Detained" is what the Arabic-language media mischievously say about fugitive Sbarro bomber Ahlam Tamimi constantly ["16-Nov-20: Justice, the Tamimi extradition and what Jordan tells Arabic media but not the world"]. It conceals the reality that she confessed and was tried and convicted of terrorism and in due course sentenced to sixteen consecutive terms of life imprisonment. 

Their systematic concealing of incontrovertible reality lets them get away with murder.

It's now plausible, at least to us, that this week's multi-party deal is the reason why Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an Australian-British academic who lectures in Islamic studies at University of Melbourne, was taken prisoner and held hostage by Iran in the first place.