Early in the morning of April 23, UVM students and faculty marched from the steps of the Waterman building to join Burlington community members outside of the U.S. District Court building on Elmwood Avenue.
Inside, Mohsen Mahdawi, a lawful U.S. permanent resident who has lived in Vermont for 10 years, was represented by lawyers defending his right to be released. On April 14, he had been detained by ICE during his naturalization hearing in Colchester because of his pro-Palestinian activism at Columbia University.
At the Waterman building, student and faculty leaders from clubs including Students for Justice in Palestine and the Staff United Solidarity Caucus, addressed a crowd of professors, students and graduate students. They expressed concern over students’ rights to free speech under the Trump administration.
“They haven’t come for our [UVM] students yet, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that they have come for anyone,” said Ellen Kaye, co-president of Staff United.
At 8 a.m., students began to march down College Street towards the courthouse to join other protesters, raising Palestinian flags and leading chants on megaphones.
“I.C.E., KKK, IOF, they’re all the same,” chanted the crowd. “From Vermont to Palestine, jailing students is a crime.”
At 8:30 a.m., they arrived, and joined the group that formed outside the courthouse. The crowd expanded from the courthouse to the end of the road, spilling onto Pearl Street.
They were welcomed by speakers, who read portions of Mahdawi’s letter from Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans, Vermont, to the crowd.
“My freedom is interlinked with Rumeysa Öztürk’s freedom to complete her PhD and Mahmoud Khalil’s freedom to witness the birth of his son. My freedom will not be complete without the freedom of Israelis from their own fear and trauma, a collective liberation from Israel’s oppressive system,” stated the letter.
The letter called for peace and supported the movement for Palestinian freedom.
“To my people in the United States, and to my people in Palestine, I hear your voices protesting for me. I see your tears flowing from the pain of oppression, and I feel your love echoing through my heart,” Mahdawi’s letter stated.
Representatives from Jewish Voices for Peace, FreeHer, Migrant Justice and more shared brief speeches with the crowd. Two organizers from UVM SJP were met with cheers from protestors.
“We are here because we are angry, we are very angry, because there are students being detained for speaking out against a genocide. There are students not allowed to see the birth of their child,” said one of the SJP organizers.
They encouraged the crowd to have one-on-one conversations with those who disagree with their perspective. Organizers then led the crowd in singing “We Shall Overcome,” a song requested by Mahdawi and his lawyers, they said.
Once the song was complete, the crowd grew silent for the duration of the legal proceedings.
The April 23 hearing decided that Mahdawi will be detained in Vermont for another 90 days as a continuation of his restraining order, with oral arguments scheduled for this Wednesday, April 30.
District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford said he intended to potentially rule on the legality of the government’s detainment of Madawi during this week’s proceedings, but wanted to afford the opportunity for more arguments to be filed, according to an April 23 VTDigger article. SJP plans to protest before the proceedings again, according to their Instagram.
