Indian-origin Georgetown University researcher Badar Khan Suri has been the latest name in President Donald Trump’s crackdown on universities after Columbia’s Mahmoud Khalil, Ranjani Srinivasan and Brown University professor Dr Rasha Alawieh. Khalil and Srinivasan have been accused of being pro-Hamas while Dr Alawieh has been deported for sympathizing with Hezbollah leaders. Badar Khan Suri’s lawyers said his name was clean and he was only targeted because of his wife.
Who is Badar Khan Suri’s wife?
Khan’s petition said he had no criminal record and had not been charged with a crime. His wife Mapheze Saleh was the reason Suri was arrested, the petition said adding that Saleh allegedly had ties with Hamas and once worked for Al Jazeera.
Saleh’s father Ahmed Yousef was reportedly a senior political adviser to the Hamas leadership. A Wikipedia page on Ahmed Yousef described him as the disciple of the founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yasin. It describes Yousef as Hamas’ gate to the West because of his years of living in the US.
The Department of Homeland Security, however, did not state that the arrest was only for his wife. They accused Suri of spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media. “Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas,” Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said referring to his wife and father-in-law.
Georgetown University said they were not aware of Dr Khan Suri engaging in any illegal activity on the campus. “Dr. Khan Suri is an Indian national who was duly granted a visa to enter the United States to continue his doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan,” a Georgetown spokesperson said in a statement, as cited by Politico. “We are not aware of him engaging in any illegal activity, and we have not received a reason for his detention. We support our community members’ rights to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate, even if the underlying ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable. We expect the legal system to adjudicate this case fairly.”
