Innocent Iranian woman imprisoned in U.S. for four years

TEHRAN, Nov. 20 (MNA) -- Iranian citizen Shahrzad Mir-Qolikhan has been imprisoned for about 1430 days in the United States, which is a country that claims to be a standard-bearer of human rights. Shahrzad Qolikhan and her husband were arrested by the Austrian police on charges of purchasing dual-use equipment. She was released from prison after completing her sentence and returned to Iran. But Qolikhan was then arrested during a trip to Cyprus in 2007 and was extradited to the United States in response to a request by the U.S. government. In a travesty of justice, she was sentenced to five years in prison and has been incarcerated in the United States since December 19, 2007. Recently, after nearly four years, Qolikhan’s mother and her children were allowed to visit her in United States. They visited each other at the house of detention, while the mothers of the three U.S. citizens, who were arrested after illegally entering Iran in 2009 and charged with espionage, stayed at Iran’s best hotels. Qolikhan’s parents have had a very difficult time during their daughter’s incarceration and are in a bad state physically and mentally. Her mother had a heart attack and a minor stroke, she had to have four operations, and the left side of her face has been paralyzed as the result of a seizure that occurred after the detention of her daughter. “Shahrzad thinks she is a forgotten creature and nobody cares about her. She is grasping at straws, but it seems futile to her,” Shahrzad Mir-Qolikhan’s mother told . Mir-Qolikhan’s detention in the United States and the discrimination she has suffered gives the lie to the United States’ claim that it is an upholder of human rights. The U.S. has accused Iran of human rights violations, even though the country released the three U.S. citizens detained for illegally entering Iran in 2009. Sarah Shourd was released on a bail of $500,000 on September 14, 2010 in an act of Islamic clemency, while Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal were released on a bail of $500,000 each on September 22, 2010. Can the U.S. justify its imprisonment of an innocent Iranian woman? At the end of the day, the court of world public opinion will make a decision on the case.