Iranian national Shahrzad Mir-Qolikhan, who spent five years in US detention from 2007 to 2012, says she was treated �disrespectfully� when she arrived at Miami International Airport.
In a Press TV documentary entitled �Memories of a Witness: Inside US Federal Prisons,� in which she recounts her ordeal, Mir-Qolikhan, now 36, said she had a feeling that her mistreatment could have been due to her nationality.
�I thought because I�m Iranian, they had this attitude,� she noted.

A mother of twins, Mir-Qolikhan said she told airport officials that, �I�m officially invited by your government, and you have no right to talk like that.�

Nevertheless, she was told to �remain silent.�

Citing the �humiliating attitude� of the officers toward her, Mir-Qolikhan said she was fingerprinted and then told to wait out of the room.

A little while later, Mir-Qolikhan said, she was told by an official in charge that �I have to inform you officially that you are under arrest.�

She was then �aggressively� body-searched by a lady officer.


�She pushed me on the wall and she started searching me,� Mir-Qolikhan recollected, visibly distressed.
The Iranian national says she was �handcuffed� and taken to the Federal Detention Center of Miami where she didn�t see the sun for the following 18 months.

In an earlier episode of the program, Mir-Qolikhan explained that she had been arrested in the Austrian capital of Vienna in 2007 based on a request from the US government.

She said she was charged with attempting to illegally import US-made night-vision goggles into Iran.

She was held in a dreaded detention center in the Austrian capital for 28 days before she was released when the US government failed to provide any evidence of wrongdoing against her, Mir-Qolikhan added.

By Press TV

 

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