Protestors at University of Michigan call for the release of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil

Protestors at the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus declared Friday that the arrest of Columbia University pro-Palestinian student organizer Mahmoud Khalil showcases the Trump administration’s willingness to silence  pro-Palestine voices and higher education’s unwillingness to protect students,.

And it is not a distant issue from Michigan, said organizers gathered in front of University of Michigan President Santa Ono’s House. Khalil’s wife, Noor Abdalla, is a U of M-Flint alumna, even speaking at the 2018 Spring Commencement.

Khalil is Palestinian, born in Syria and led protests in support of Palestine at Columbia University. He is a permanent resident with a green card, but was arrested by Immigrations and Custom Enforcement for purported support for Hamas in the lobby of his New York apartment building in front of Abdalla, who is an American citizen and eight months pregnant.

The protestors called the arrest an “abduction”, decrying it as an illegal act done with the sole goal of silencing Palestinians. As Khalil faces deportation by the Trump administration, U of M student Erek Mirque urged the crowd to recognize that regardless of immigration status or school, those in power will use every tool of violence to silence the pro-Palestinian movement.

“Mahmoud Khalil wasn’t just targeted for his documentation status. He was targeted for his strength in advocating for Palestinian liberation. He was targeted for being Palestinian and calling for the freedom of his people in a country that disregards Palestinian lives,” Mirque said. “We cannot just focus on his documentation status when talking about this injustice, because regardless of documentation, we should all have the power to call for an end to genocide and Israeli occupation.”

Protestors also called on President Santa Ono and others in the university’s administration to fight against Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s case against several participants in an on-campus encampment last May now facing trespassing misdemeanors and felony charges for resisting law enforcement.

The charges are political and the university shows its cowardice and bigotry by not standing with the protestors, U of M student Eaman Ali said. And as the pro-Palestinian movement raises its voice in the face of threats to “confront the many heads of the beast” at the university, Ali said, like the people of Palestine, those who gather at U of M will not be defeated.

“We fight back because we know that both our legal battles and the abduction of Mahmoud are not just about legality or even just about freedom of speech,” Ali said. “We fight back because we know Mahmoud was not just abducted because he is an immigrant. He was abducted because he’s Palestinian. He was abducted because his very existence undermines the legitimacy of the settler colonial project of Israel.”