Currently Online 
A ‘political prisoner’: US advocates rally for detained Georgetown scholar
Dozens of activists chanted “Free him now. Free him now”, as lawyers argued over the case of Badar Khan Suri, who has been detained by the US government over his support for Palestinian rights.
Khan Suri, a postdoctoral scholar at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, was arrested in March as part of US President Donald Trump’s campaign to punish and deport non-citizens accused of fuelling pro-Palestinian demonstrations on college campuses.
After his arrest in Virginia, immigration officials quickly moved Khan Suri from a local detention centre to one in Louisiana and then in Texas. On Thursday, his lawyers argued for the scholar to be moved back to his home state of Virginia, where his case is currently unfolding.
Ultimately, Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles demanded answers from authorities about why Khan Suri was moved so swiftly out of Virginia. She gave the government’s lawyers 24 hours to respond.
Mapheze Saleh, Badar Khan Suri’s wife, speaks outside the federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, on May 1
Trump says he will remove Harvard’s tax-exempt status
US President Donald Trump has said he plans to strip Harvard University of its tax-exempt status, the latest salvo against the Ivy League school amid a pattern of broader action against top US universities over campus activism, including pro-Palestinian protests.
“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” Trump said in a post on his social media platform, without specifying when he might take action.
Since taking office in January, Trump has targeted major US universities by freezing federal funding, launching investigations, revoking student visas and making other demands, saying higher education has been gripped by anti-Semitic, anti-American, Marxist, pro-Hamas and “radical left” ideologies.
