Georgetown Academic Free of immigration removal

Researcher Badar Khan Suri from Georgetown was freed from a detention center in Texas after he was arrested as part of the performance of the Trump government against activists at university campuses.

A federal court ordered the release of Mr Suri, who was a postgraduate Fellow at the prestigious Washington DC institution on a student visa.

An Indian national, he was arrested outside his house in Virginia on 17 March by immigration agents.

His lawyers say that he was the target of speech to support Palestinian rights and family ties with Gaza “. American authorities accuse him of” spreading Hamas -propaganda “and having” connections with a known or suspected terrorist “.

The Ministry of Justice argued that the government had the right to hold him until the legal proceedings ended.

The American district judge Patricia Tolliver Giles, however, ruled on Wednesday that his detention violated his right to freedom of expression and an appropriate process.

She refuted the government’s claims that he had ties with Hamas through his wife Mapheze Saleh, an American citizen whose father was a government official in Gaza.

“There was no evidence to this court about statements he made” in support of Hamas, according to the American partner CBS News of the BBC, the judge said.

Mr Suri’s father-in-law is a former adviser to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh who was murdered in July last year, reported the Washington Post and New York Times.

In her statementMrs. Saleh said that her father lived in the US for almost 20 years while studying. “Then he served as a political adviser to Gaza Prime Minister and as the deputy of Foreign Affairs in Gaza,” she said.

Mrs. Saleh said he left the Gaza government in 2010 and started an institution to encourage peace and conflict solution in Gaza in 2011.

“Hearing the words of the judge brought tears in my eyes,” Saleh said in a press release from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is involved in the defense of Mr Suri.

“I really wanted me to give her a sincere hug of mine and my three children, who want to see their father every day,” she said.

“There is no crime about what happens in Palestine.”

The Trump government is still trying to deport Mr Suri in a separate procedure, the ACLU said.

Various students and academics have been investigated by American immigration officials in recent weeks, and accused them of pleading for “violence and terrorism”.

Among them had graduated from Columbia University and permanent American resident Mahmoud Khalilwho was arrested on March 8 after he was involved in Pro-Palestinian protests on campus. He was accused of having ties with Hamas, which he denies.

The release of Badar Khan Suri comes days after the student of Tufts University Rumeysa Ozturk was released after a judicial order on bail.

Mrs. Ozturk was kept in a detention facility in Louisiana after officials had arrested her on the street in Massachusetts in March and accused her of “undertaking activities to support Hamas”.