Mahmoud Khalil rebukes Columbia for attacking the dissent with
Khalil, a married green card holder with an American citizen, was taken by federal immigration agents on March 8 for his role in helping to lead protests against the war last year at the Columbia campus. While his judicial case takes place in New Jersey, Khalil remains detained without charge in a Louisian detention center, where he dictated to his lawyer an opinion article for the spectator of Columbia he published on Friday.
“The situation reminds strangely when I fled the brutality of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria and sought refuge in Lebanon,” he said. “The logic used by the federal government to aim me and my colleagues is a direct extension of the Columbia repression plays about Palestine.”
Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu through Getty Images
Khalil accused the University of suppressing the dissent directed by students under the appearance of combating anti -Semitism, even giving the disciplinary records of the students of the Congress, launching a working group that is equivalent to criticism to the state of Israel with hate speech, and creating an office that is destined to review discrimination reports, but “it became a mechanism to persecute students Pro-Palestinian without due process “.
Columbia faced a public reaction after deciding to accept the Trump administration, which threatened to withdraw hundreds of millions of dollars in funds if universities did not implement their restrictive demands that have been widely labeled as an offensive against academic freedom, the dissent of students and freedom of expression.
After the interim president Katrina Armstrong resigned from school, Khalil said the Board of Trustees “chose to set fire to the institution with which they are entrusted” by appointing one of theirs for the position destined for academic leadership.
“For the members of the Faculty of Columbia that are given palmadita in the back for their progressive inclinations, but they are happy to limit their participation to performative statements: what will be needed to resist the destruction of their university?” Khalil said. “Is positions more than the life of your students and the integrity of their work?”
Hanna Leka/Middle East/News through Getty Images
Since Khalil’s kidnapping, several more international students who support Palestinian freedom have been kidnapped or are fighting deportation threats. Khalil called Yunseo Chung, Ranjani Srinivasan, Leqaa Kordia, Badar Khan Suri and Rümeysa Öztürk, some of whom were students from other universities.
“The movement for Palestinian freedom and justice in Columbia and in all of the United States has always focused community attention,” Khalil said. “Together he organized mutual help for families in Gaza through sales and financing campaigns. He created spaces for study, circles reading and cross solidarity. This movement has always been based. It was directed by students, many younger than me, who risked their careers, their degrees and their futures to the demand for divestment.”
The arrested activist emphasized his letter that students must continue to fight against the efforts of the federal government to use universities as instruments of state violence, even if they do not have a personal participation in Palestine freedom.
“For students who remain apathicetic with Columbia’s contempt for human life and their willingness to rule out students’ safety: as the federal government pressure intensifies, it knows that its neutrality in Palestine will not protect it. When the time of the federal government arrives to point to other causes, it will be their names that Columbia will offer a silver dish, it will be its plate that falls on the singles, it will They are only those that are the causes of Columbia.
We do not work for billionaires. We work for you.
The great monetary interests are directing the government and influencing the news it reads. While other points of sale are withdrawing behind the paid walls and bending the knee at political pressure, News is proud to be not appealed and unilruled. Will you help us keep it like this? You can even access our stories without ads.
You have supported News before and we will be honest: we could use your help again. We will not go back to our mission to provide free and fair news during this critical moment. But we can’t do it without you.
For the first time, we are offering an experience without ads to qualified taxpayers who support our intrepid journalism. We hope it will join us.
You have supported News before and we will be honest: we could use your help again. We will not go back to our mission to provide free and fair news during this critical moment. But we can’t do it without you.
For the first time, we are offering an experience without ads to qualified taxpayers who support our intrepid journalism. We hope it will join us.
Support News
Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages.
“The student movement will continue to carry the mantle of a free Palestine,” he continued. “History will redeem us, while those who were content to wait on the sidelines will be remembered forever by their silence.”