"Ramadan is the sound of your mother's voice calling you to iftar. It is the particular smell of food being prepared with love after a long day of fasting. It is the feeling of breaking bread with family, of praying together, of being held by community in the holiest time of the year. But they denied you halal food in that facility. They denied you the basic dignity of practicing your faith."
"It has now been one full year. One year since that dreadful night that marked the beginning of a brutal wave of arrests targeting protesters for nothing more than speaking the truth. Though we have never met in person, I have carried you with me every single day since Noor called me while I was detained in Jena, Louisiana, to tell me that you had been taken."
Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist arrested for political advocacy, marks one year since his detention by writing to Leqaa Kordia, another Palestinian held in ICE detention in Texas for nearly a year. Khalil was released after three months but faces ongoing deportation proceedings under the Trump administration. His letter emphasizes Kordia's second Ramadan in detention, describing how the facility denied her halal food and basic religious practice. Khalil reflects on the brutality of detention centers, the wave of arrests targeting protesters, and the systematic stripping of dignity from detainees. He expresses solidarity with Kordia's struggle while documenting the human cost of immigration detention on vulnerable communities.
#immigration-detention #palestinian-activism #religious-freedom #human-rights #political-persecution
Read at www.theguardian.com
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