A US court has blocked the deportation of Indian researcher Badar Khan Suri, who was detained by immigration authorities earlier this week for spreading Hamas propaganda. His lawyer had argued that he was being targeted due to his wife's Palestinian roots.
Suri is a postdoctoral fellow studying and teaching at the prestigious Washington DC institution on a student visa. In an order on Thursday, Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles said Mr Suri "shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the Court issues a contrary order".
He was arrested on Monday night by agents of the Department of Homeland Security from his home in Arlington, Virginia.
A sworn statement by his wife Mapheze Saleh said Suri's detention "has completely upended our lives and children missed him dearly." "As a mother of three children, I desperately need his support to take care of them and me."
His arrest comes amid the detention or deportation of other foreign students and academics, including Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil and Indian PhD student Ranjani Sreenivasan.
The Canary Mission
In his petition before the court, Suri had alleged that he and his wife had long been 'doxxed and smeared" online by an "anonymously-run blacklisting site" known as The Canary Mission. The site has a dedicated profile for her in which it accuses Saleh of working for Hamas. "She expressed support for Hamas terrorism and called for Israel's destruction," it read,
The petition alleged that The Canary Mission runs a blacklist of individuals who its creators believe support Palestinian rights and "is infamous for bullying, slandering, and defaming academics and students." The complaint also alleges that the couple were "smeared" by other websites.
Saleh's Hamas links
In her sworn statement, Saleh has detailed her father's alleged links with the Hamas, stating that her father lived in the US for nearly 20 years while pursuing a master's and PhD. "Afterward, he served as political advisor to the Prime Minister of Gaza and as the deputy of foreign affairs in Gaza," she said.
But, he left the Gaza government in 2010 and "started the House of Wisdom in 2011 to encourage peace and conflict resolution in Gaza".
Saleh's father was father-in-law is a former adviser to killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, the Washington Post and New York Times reported.
