Mahmoud Khalil, a protester at the University of Columbia, calls himself a “political prisoner,” but urges students to respond in further protests.
“My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner,” Khalil said in a fierce letter written from the Louisiana immigration detention facility.
Haldi's principal, Halil, Columbia University's apartheid dibust, called his arrest “a direct result of my exercise of my right to freedom of speech, as I advocated for free Palestine and defended the end of Gaza's genocide.”
He accused Colombian leaders of “laying the foundation for the US government to “target me by arbitrarily training Palestinian students in arbitrarily and by allowing a viral doxing campaign based on racism and disinformation.”
He called for further protest.
“If anything, my detention is evidence of the strength of the student movement in changing public opinion to the liberation of Palestine,” he wrote.
“In the coming weeks, students, supporters and elected officials must unite to defend their right to protest against Palestine. It is not just our voices that are at stake, but all the fundamental civic liberties.”
