Mahmoud Khalil says “Political Prisoner” is in the first statement since arrest – National
Mahmoud Khalilrecent graduate and pro-Palestinian activist of the University of Columbia who was Closed American immigration authorities 11 days ago he spoke from the detention center in Jena, Louisiana, for the first time after his arrest.
In a Statement to the guardKhalil said that “the political prisoner … testifies to the quiet injustices that have been underway by many people who have prevented the protection of the law.”
In his remarks, what can you Read in fullKhalil accused Trump’s administration of targeting him “as part of a broader disposal strategy,”
Khalil, who is a permanent American resident and married Noor Abdall, an American citizen in New York on March 8, was detained by American immigration and the implementation of the customs implementation (ICE) because of the role he played last spring pro-Palestinian protests based on Columbia University.
Khalil says that the agents who arrested him “refused to give the order” before threatening to deport and recalled his green card.
“At that moment, my only concern was for Noor’s security,” he said. “I had no idea if she would be taken away too, because the agents threatened to arrest her because they did not leave my side.”
After his arrest, Khalil was transferred to a holding facility in New Jersey before flying in Louisian, where he remained.
On Tuesday, from his cell, Khalil described in detail his experience in custody and asked the basics of the US law.
“Who has the right to have rights?” he asked. “They are certainly not the people who have been transferred to the cells here. It is not the Senegal man I met who had been deprived of his freedom for a year, his legal situation in Limb and his family at the Ocean. This is not a 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped into this country at the age of nine, just to be deported without that hearing.
“Justice avoids the contours of the immigration objects of this nation,” Khalil added.
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He continued to condemn US foreign policy, belonged to federal pressure on federal pressure to reprimand student protesters and recently break up the fragile interruption of Israel.
“My arrest was a direct consequence of the exploitation of the right to freedom of speech as I advocated a free Palestine and the end of the Gaza genocide, which continued its full strength on Monday night,” he said, adding that “our moral imperative is to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.”
In the days after Khalil’s custody, he calls for his release. Hundreds of protesters gathered in New York looking for his freedom.
People gather outside the New York court to protest the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil on March 12, 2025 (Photo Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images).
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
On March 10, Khalil’s deportation was blocked by the federal judge Jesse Furman, who requested lawyers for both sides of further arguments.
Pro-Palestinian Student Activist detained by a mass protest by Ice spark in ny
On Friday, legal representatives of the Government requested that Khalil’s case be rejected or transferred to Louisian.
Furman rejected the requests of government lawyers on Wednesday to move his case to Louisian and ordered Halil To stay in the United States for now.
Furman moved Khalil’s case from New York to New Jersey, claiming he had no jurisdiction to oversee him because Khalil was held in New Jersey when his lawyers first challenged his arrest for involvement in last year’s demonstration.
Khalil did not participate in camps at university for fear of losing a student visa, but he often spoke with a press and was in charge of adherence to student activists’ interests during interviews with the University in connection with the terms for the completion of the protest.
Columbia Mahmoud Khalil University Student (Center) talks to print during journalists who organized pro-Palestinian protesters who set up a new Campus of Morningside Heights University of Columbia in New York (Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu through Getty Images).
Selcuk Acar/Anadolo via Getty Images)
During this time, he retained the obligation to preserve and interest the Jewish people and Palestinians.
After progressing anti-Semitism in the campus, Khalil said last spring to CNN: “I believe that the liberation of the Palestinian people and the Jewish people are intertwined and go hand in hand, and you cannot achieve them without the other.”
For a year, Khalil’s custody indicates first in national hunting for university students participating in the demonstration against Israel-Hamas conflict, which is further complicated by government pressure on educational institutions to suffocate student activism.
In the recent social place of truth, US President Donald Trump called those who align with Palestinian cause as “terrorist sympathizers”, declaring that they no longer have the right to stay in the US, adding that his administration “will” find, arrest and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country – they never come back. “
In the meantime, the government reduces funding at US universities that do not deprive their diversity, equality and programming of inclusion.
The US Ministry of Education posted a list on Friday 45 universities In researching their “use of racial preferences and stereotypes in educational programs and activities.”
Trump’s administration on Wednesday stopped $ 175 million in government support for the University of Pennsylvania for his policy regarding the participation of transgender athletes.
Similarly, the Johns Hopkins University announced on Friday Thousands of release in 44 countries and cover its activities related to USAID support in Baltimore and abroad after losing $ 800 million in public health from the US International Development Agency.
– With files from Reuters
& Copy 2025 Global News, Corus Enterinment Inc.
