(New York) Professors of American universities began to denounce a climate of fear on Monday on Monday caused by the Trump administration policy to expel Propalestinian foreign students, on the first day of a symbol trial before federal justice, seized by associations to defend freedom of expression.
During this trial which must last two weeks in Boston, associations of professors, notably from Harvard University, in the viewfinder of Donald Trump, ask the justice to recognize that the American government has implemented an “policy of expulsions based on ideology”, contrary to the first amendment of the Constitution which protects freedom of expression.
They also ask judge William G. Young, a magistrate appointed by former republican president Ronald Reagan, to prohibit such a policy, of which the Trump administration refutes existence.
For associations, the arrests of foreign students for their expulsion, such as that of the Propaletinian activist of the New York University Columbia, Mahmoud Khalil, or the Turkish student Rumeyza Ozturk, aim to muzzle the voices against the Israeli war in Gaza and the defense of the Palestinians, and weaken public debate.
Professor of anthropology and studies on the Middle East at Brown University (Rhode Island), holder of a resident card in the United States, Nadje Al-Ali told hearing on Monday that she had given up conferences in Beirut, while she was in Europe, for fear of being stopped on her return to the United States.
“I was afraid of undergoing interrogation, whether they are looking for my name in Google and find allegations against my center (of studies) and I, associating me with a Propalestinian discourse, and worse, it often turns into anti -Semitism and support for Hamas,” said this German teacher who spoke of his Iraqi origins.
The academic, who is not the only expected to testify, also claimed to have renounced several demonstrations against the policies of the Trump administration because she was afraid of being filmed and then “targeted”.
During the trial, the US government intends to demonstrate that it has only applied existing immigration laws and visa or residence permits. In the case of Mahmoud Khalil, born in Syria of Palestinian parents, the government argues that its presence on American soil poses “potentially serious consequences for American policy”, by accusing it of support for the Islamist Hamas movement.
“This case is an extremely important test for the first amendment at a time when we need its protections more than ever,” said Knight First Amendment Institute of Columbia University, one of the organizations behind the complaint.
According to this institute, it is the first trial to open on the substance which relates to freedom of expression under Donald Trump since his return to the White House.
