Swiss envoy summoned over Shahrzad

The Iranian Foreign Ministry has summoned the Swiss envoy over United States’ inhumane treatment of an Iranian woman who has been held in a US prison for three years.

Shahrzad Mir-Qolikhan was arrested in the US in 2007 after being forced to return to America from a vacation in Cyprus.

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. Mir-Qolikhan has now been in prison for nearly 3 years.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry voiced the Tehran government’s protest over the United States’ mistreatment of the Iranian national, demanding an explanation from US officials regarding reports about Mir-Qolikhan situation.

“Her life has been threatened in the prison and she suffers from lack of medical attention and sanitarian facilities; prison guards have prevented her from contacting her family and they do not respond to her protests,” the Foreign Ministry said.

It is expected from US officials, who claim to be advocates of human rights, to be committed to their slogans and behave according to their claims, Iran’s Foreign Ministry added.

“Inhumane treatment of prisoners is a deep-rooted problem in the US and American officials do not provide the opportunity for visiting detained Iranian nationals in this country,” the Foreign Ministry said.

“Therefore [the prisoners’] families and the office representing the Islamic Republic of Iran’s interests in the US cannot even meet detained Iranian nationals.”

The Swiss envoy, for his part, said he would relay Iran’s message and discontentment about the issue — in particular about the case of Mir-Qolikhan — to officials in Washington.