LOUISIANA: Detained Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil appeared briefly Friday in immigration court at a remote Louisiana detention center as his lawyers fight in multiple venues to try to free him.
Khalil, 30, a legal US resident with no criminal record, sat alone next to an empty chair through a brief court session that dealt only with scheduling. His lawyer participated via video.
Khalil swayed back and forth in his chair as he waited for the proceeding to begin in a windowless courtroom inside an isolated, low-slung Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention complex. Ringed by two rows of tall barbed-wire fences and surrounded by pine forests, the facility is near the small town of Jena, roughly 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Louisiana’s capital, Baton Rouge.
Khalil smiled at two observers as they came into the room, where just 13 people ultimately gathered, including the judge, attorneys and court staff. Two journalists and a total of four other observers attended.
By video, lawyer Marc Van Der Hout said he’d just started representing Khalil and needed more time to speak to him, get records and delve into the case. An immigration judge set a fuller hearing for April 8.
Khalil’s lawyers also have gone to federal court to challenge his detention and potential deportation, which looms as his wife, a US citizen, is expecting their first child. A federal judge in New York ruled Wednesday that Khalil can contest the legality of his detention but that the case should be moved to a New Jersey federal court.
The Columbia University graduate student was detained by federal immigration agents on March 8 as part of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on what he calls antisemitic and “anti-American” campus protests. Khalil served as a spokesperson and negotiator last year for pro-Palestinian demonstrators who opposed Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Protesters, some of them Jewish, say it’s not antisemitic or anti-American to criticize Israeli military actions and advocate for Palestinian human rights and territorial claims.
However, some Jewish students have said the demonstrations didn’t just criticize Israel’s government but launched into rhetoric and behavior that made Jews feel unwelcome or outright unsafe on the Ivy League campus. A Columbia task force on antisemitism found “serious and pervasive” problems at the university.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has asserted that Khalil organized disruptive protests that harassed Jewish students and “distributed pro-Hamas propaganda.” Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza and attacked Israel in October 2023, is designated by the US as a terrorist organization.
The US government is seeking to deport Khalil under a rarely used statute that allows for removing noncitizens who pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
Khalil, an Algerian citizen who was born in Syria to a Palestinian family, has said in a statement that his detention reflects “anti-Palestinian racism” in the US Before his detention by the government, he said that a Columbia disciplinary investigation was scapegoating him for being an identifiable figure at the protests.
Columbia now is contending with broader pressure to address the Trump administration’s assertions of antisemitism, including demands for unprecedented levels of government control over the private university if it wants to continue receiving federal grants for research and other purposes.
Detained Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil appears in immigration case
https://arab.news/y9zzh
Detained Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil appears in immigration case
- Khalil, 30, a legal US resident with no criminal record, sat alone next to an empty chair through a brief court session that dealt only with scheduling
- He smiled at two observers as they came into the room, where just 13 people ultimately gathered, including the judge, attorneys and court staff
Mediterranean search-and-rescue NGOs refuse to cooperate with Libyan coast guard
- Group of 13 organizations announce they will no longer share information over allegations of violent conduct
- Migrants and asylum-seekers allegedly attacked, taken to camps notorious for slavery, torture and rape in North African country
LONDON: A group of NGOs operating rescue missions in the Mediterranean have ceased cooperating with the Libyan coast guard over the latter’s alleged violent treatment of asylum-seekers.
Thirteen groups running boats across the sea say it is a rejection of pressure from the EU to share information with Libya in a bid to stem the flow of migrants, particularly to Italy.
The EU funds and trains Libya’s coast guard, but the groups say that it has been involved in violently preventing people crossing to Europe, and has taken migrants to camps where rape, torture and slavery are common.
A 2021 UN report found asylum-seekers and refugees in Libya faced a “litany of abuses” in camps across the country that were “suggestive of crimes against humanity.”
Another report published last month by Berlin-based NGO Sea-Watch said that the Libyan coast guard had engaged in 54 acts of violence in the Mediterranean since 2016.
It highlighted ramming, shootings and assaults, while in August the Libyan coast guard was accused of opening fire on a ship belonging to the NGO SOS Mediterranee.
Ina Friebe, a member of the German activist group CompassCollective, said in a joint statement on behalf of the 13 NGOs: “We have never recognized these actors (Libya’s coast guard) as a legitimate rescue authority — they are part of a violent regime enabled by the EU.”
She added: “Now we are increasingly being pressured to communicate with exactly these actors. This must stop. Ending all operational communication with the so-called Libyan Rescue Coordination Center is both a legal and moral necessity — a clear line against European complicity in crimes against humanity.”
The group of 13 NGOs added that they know their stance could result in fines, detention and loss of their vessels.
“It is not only our right but our duty to treat armed militias as such in our operational communication — not as legitimate actors in search-and-rescue operations,” said Giulia Messmer of Sea-Watch.
Rescue organizations operating in the Mediterranean have saved more than 155,000 people over the past decade, but that has led to backlashes, including in Italy where the law was changed to prevent them operating freely out of ports.
The 13 NGOs said this week that they had launched the Justice Fleet initiative to track incidents involving the Libyan coast guard, as well as compile information on legal action taken by the groups.
“For 10 years, civil sea rescue has been providing first aid in the Mediterranean. For that, we have been blocked, criminalized, slandered,” the Justice Fleet website said.
“That’s why we are joining forces now, stronger than ever — to defend human rights and international maritime law together.”
