Tehran slams US 'harassment' of Iran at its borders

Iran has denounced "unconstitutional and inhuman" treatment of travelers of Iranian descent by US border guards, saying the American government holds responsibility for the harassment.

The reaction by Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi on Saturday came after the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in a report revealed that US border officers had been instructed to target and interrogate Iranian-born travellers, Press TV reported.

The CBC revelation follows reports that up to 200 people of Iranian descent travelling from Canada were detained and questioned for hours at multiple Canada-US border crossings during the weekend of January 4, a day after the killing of Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani in an American drone attack in Iraq.

"Such highly discriminatory practices against people, purely because of their race, nationality, or religion, are wholly rejected in terms of international human rights laws and practices, and the US government is responsible for them," Mousavi said.

Given that these people have been questioned by US border guards and security forces about their political views and faiths and their internet accounts broken into, this is a case of inquisition and gross human rights violation."

According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confiscated the travellers' passports and held some of them waiting for as long as 10 hours, refusing to grant them entry to America.

The CBP has however, denied detaining Iran and blocking them from entering the country based on their heritage.

Mousavi added that a complaint could be lodged against such conducts with human rights courts.

( With inputs from IANS )