\n<\/p>\n
Hamdi’s lawyers say he was detained for his pro-Palestinian views and only accused of overstaying his visa after it was revoked without warning.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n British journalist and pro-Palestine commentator Sami Hamdi is set to return home more than two weeks after he was imprisoned by US immigration authorities, his wife and legal representatives said on Monday.<\/p>\n Hamdi, 35, was stopped at San Francisco international airport in California on October 26, and detained by agents from the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency mid-way through a speaking tour discussing Israel\u2019s war on Gaza.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Hassan M Ahmad, a lawyer from the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CA), and the Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA) said in a statement on Monday that the journalist and commentator was punished for his criticism of Israel during his US speaking tour and not for any alleged wrongdoing.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is this simple: Sami never should have spent a single night in an ICE cell,\u201d Hussam Ayloush, the CEO of CAIR\u2019s California chapter, said in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cHis only real \u2018offense\u2019 was speaking clearly about Israel\u2019s genocidal war crimes against Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe immigration charging document filed in his case alleged only a visa overstay\u2014after the government revoked his visa without cause and without prior notice\u2014and never identified any criminal conduct or security grounds,\u201d Hamdi\u2019s legal representatives said in the joint statement.<\/p>\n Hamdi\u2019s wife, Soumaya Hamdi, welcomed the news in a series of posts on social media, saying, \u201cSami is coming home, alhamdullilah. Elated doesn\u2019t begin to describe the feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n She also expressed her \u201cheartfelt gratitude\u201d to the \u201ccountless wonderful people\u201d who offered assistance during her husband\u2019s detention.<\/p>\n A number of institutions raised concerns about Hamdi\u2019s treatment, including his former university, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, and freedom of expression organisation PEN America.<\/p>\n By contrast, some people openly advocated for Hamdi to be detained, including far-right activist and Donald Trump ally Laura Loomer, who celebrated Hamdi\u2019s detention and repeatedly claimed he was going to be deported, without citing her sources.<\/p>\n Loomer, a self-described \u201cproud Islamophobe\u201d,\u00a0also accused Hamdi of supporting Islamic terrorism, without providing any evidence.<\/p>\n Responding to allegations about his son, Hamdi\u2019s father, Mohamed El-Hachmi Hamdi, said in a post on X that he \u201chas no affiliation\u201d with any political or religious group.<\/p>\n \u201cHis stance on Palestine is not aligned with any faction there, but rather, with the people\u2019s right to security, peace, freedom and dignity. He is, quite simply, one of the young dreamers of this generation, yearning for a world with more compassion, justice, and solidarity,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n The administration of US President Donald Trump has targeted a number of pro-Palestinian advocates, even as it has also worked to mediate a precarious truce agreement between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.<\/p>\n Those targeted include Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian former student of Columbia University. who continues to face challenges to his US immigration status after being freed from detention in June.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s war on Gaza has killed at least 68,875 Palestinians and wounded 170,679 since October 2023, in what an independent United Nations commission of inquiry and multiple human rights organisations have labelled as a genocide.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Hamdi’s lawyers say he was detained for his pro-Palestinian views and only accused of overstaying his visa after it was revoked without warning. British journalist and pro-Palestine commentator Sami Hamdi is set to return home more than two weeks after he was imprisoned by US immigration authorities, his wife and legal representatives said on Monday. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"