‘IRONIC’

ICE Keeping Yemeni Hunger Striker Alive So He Can Die Elsewhere: Lawyers

Asylum-seeker Hamad Mohsen Thabit Saad Sayad will be tortured or killed if he’s sent back home, his attorneys say.

A Yemeni hunger striker with no criminal record is being kept alive by ICE—which is seeking to deport him—long enough to be killed by Houthi rebels back home, his lawyers say. As The Daily Beast previously reported, the U.S. government was granted permission by a judge to “involuntarily administer nutrition” to asylum-seeker Hamad Mohsen Thabit Saad Sayad through “placement of a nasogastric tube,” which has been deemed torture by various international bodies. In a new court filing, Sayad, who is being detained on civil immigration charges, claims he stopped eating in protest after contract guards employed by ICE discriminated against him for praying and reading the Koran. Sayad’s attorneys say he should be allowed to continue his hunger strike, as it is protected by the First Amendment, arguing that it is “ironic that the government contends Mr. Sayad’s constitutional rights must yield to its interest in keeping him alive long enough to be sent to likely face death elsewhere.”

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Justin RohrlichReporter

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