“I hope that you will interview him soon.” That’s what Mapheze Saleh told me a few weeks ago at a Zeteo DC event, about her detained husband, Badar Khan Suri.
And now, we have made it happen. Suri, a Georgetown scholar, was released from ICE detention in Texas after a federal judge ordered him to be freed on bail.
He joined us to talk about the government’s case (or lack thereof) against him, his difficult yet profound experiences in detention, and how this has impacted his free speech, and the free speech of those all across the country.
In detention, Suri faced dismal conditions. The “acute malnutrition” only exacerbated other issues. One prison guard punched him behind his knee as he was unshackling him, a pain that has radiated since.
“Everybody was losing weight. I lost seven kilograms [or 15 lbs.] in these two months because the food they were giving was, I mean, nothing,” Suri said, before describing the drastic results he got from a blood test he asked for. “This was acute malnutrition because of that diet, because of the sunless life we were living in, and everybody was going through the same hell experience there.”
Despite the troubling conditions Suri faced, as well as the awful circumstances he observed his fellow detainees being forced into, he maintained a remarkable optimism.
“The US is not just the administration; the United States is the entire society. It's my wife's country, it's your country, it's the place of my work,” he said. “So, I am an integral part of it, and it's an integral part of me, and societies are what we make.”
Suri described Gandhi’s philosophy of forgiveness as pivotal to the path forward. “[W]e have to live with fellow humans, and by having this retribution or revenge, it's a perpetual, never-ending cycle that's not going to help us. So, we have to learn this art of Gandhian forgiveness and empathy – I mean the hate should be tackled with peace and compassion.”
Despite our differences, Suri says, we can persist and bridge them. “America is the perfect place for me.”
Watch the conversation above to hear more from Badar Khan Suri in conversation with Prem.
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If you are a student affected by this or someone who works in or around the US government with relevant information about these developments, please contact me via email or Signal (premthakker.35).
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