Artists, cultural workers and historians mobilize in protest against the intended arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian refugee raised in Syria who served as a negotiator between the apartheid of Columbia University Divest (CUAD) and the administration of the institution.
About 3,000 Protesters marched from the federal courthouse from Manhattan to Union Square and called on Monday afternoon, March 10, to set up the release of Khalil, in a protest attended by the group artists against apartheid (AAA), among others.
After the protest, dozens of artists and academics, including the Palestinian-American artist Samia Halaby, published one open letter Condemning the “targeting of immigrant students” via the forum of the cultural organization of Manhattan Cultural Organization.
Khalil, a legal permanent resident who graduated with a master’s degree at the Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs in Decemberwas held on Saturday evening 8 March by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), while he returned from a Iftar dinner To his apartment with his wife, who is eight months pregnant. The New York Civil Liberties Union and the American Civil Liberties Union have criticized Khalil’s arrest as’ illegal ‘,’ discriminatory ‘and’ meant to intimidate and chill speech.
“Artists in particular have a very strong bond with the student movement,” said Tahia Islam, a visual artist and main organizer for AAA, said Hyperallergic In a telephone interview. “We have a legacy to be on the right side of history and also to be silenced by institutions, especially at the moment, for having pro-Palestinian views.”
On Monday evening, demonstrators sang slogans for the release of Khalil and posters with his portrait and long Poppy-flour-shaped picketboards, made by AAA members on the People’s Forum during Kunstbuilds in the past 15 months.
Hundreds of officers of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) responded to the demonstration, walked with demonstrators through Lower Manhattan, and about halfway through the protest, one demonstrator was arrested in loud angry from the crowd.
A spokesperson for NYPD told Hyperallergic That a 21-year-old man was arrested for “obstructing government administration” and another 33-year-old man was arrested for “abuse”. Hyperallergic has asked about the way of abuse.
Khalil, who is Now retained In a detention center of Louisiana, told Al Jazeera In an interview with May that he did not abstain from the Spring Camp of Columbia and related protests, for fear that any involvement could influence its immigration status. Instead, he chose to work as the leading negotiator in public between the university and protesters and answered media questions. President Donald Trump has celebrated Khalil’s arrestTo burn an extremist and promises to deport more Pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the future. In the days prior to his arrest, Khalil asked the President Katrina Armstrong of Columbia to protect him against persistent deportation threats, according to E -mails obtained by Zeteo.
“I am particularly afraid that universities may think that they can transfer a few students, whose political expression they find annoying, to the government in exchange for the recovery of federal financing,” Rebecca Zorach told the Northwestern University Art History Rebecca Zorach, who told the open letter from the Volksforumum, told Hyperallergic In an e -mail.
During Monday’s protest representatives of the People’s Forum, New York Immigration Coalition and the new Sanctuary Coalition called for the immediate release of Khalil when a growing crowd started to march around at around 5 p.m. Writers against De War On Gaza (Wawog), a group that argued for a cultural front to support Palestine, spread a matter of their protest newspaper ‘New York War Crimes’ to demonstrators prior to the Mars.
“Artists and cultural workers and colleagues in colleges and universities must come together and acknowledge that an attack on one group is an attack on everyone,” said Zorach, and noted that the skills of artists can be vital for “a broad political movement”.
