US prison puts Shahrzad life in danger

The family of Shahrzad Mir-Qolikhan, an innocent Iranian woman who has been detained in a prison in the United States for three years, has expressed serious concern about her health.

“Violence and corruption in (the US) prison have raised our concern about her health,” Mir-Qolikhan’s mother, Belqeys Roshan, told Fars news agency on Sunday.

Following a physical conflict between prisoners last week, Shahrzad called on security officials of the prison to help a black woman who sustained bloodshed and suffered a fracture and prevent her death, Roshan said.

The attacker forced Shahrzad into a cell and threatened her to commit the same violent act, she added.

Mir-Qolikhan’s mother said her daughter cannot sleep at night in fear of being raped and added that a prisoner in Shahrzad’s cell rents her bed to homosexuals.

“This made my daughter suffer from mental torture, but she cannot protest the issue,” she went on to say.

She noted that psychologists in the US prison have made efforts to pretend that she is mentally ill in order to claim that “she will someday commit suicide due to mental problems.”

Mir-Qolikhan was arrested in the US in December 2007, after being forced to return to the States from a vacation in Cyprus. She has been permitted brief phone calls to her family in Iran — twin daughters and their grandparents — during her three-year imprisonment.

Her former husband, Mahmoud Seif, had allegedly tried to export night-vision goggles to Iran from Austria.

However, she was detained and sentenced to five years in prison by a Florida federal court in the absence of her husband.

Tehran has repeatedly slammed the case as an example of human rights violation in the United States, demanding the release of the 33-year-old Iranian national.

On January 3, the Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned the Swiss envoy over US inhumane treatment of Mir-Qolikhan, demanding an explanation from US officials regarding reports about her situation.

“Her life has been threatened in the prison and she suffers from lack of medical attention and sanitarian facilities,” the Foreign Ministry said.

On Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast also touched upon the issue, recommending Washington should observe the rights of Iranian nationals.

“Defense for the rights of Iranian nationals in different countries is among serious issues which is on the agenda of Iran’s Foreign Ministry,” he said.