Twin Assaults on Press Freedom

For more than a week, Sami Hamdi, a British political commentator, has been in ICE detention. He was arrested in San Francisco while on a speaking tour hosted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the United States. Hamdi has done several such tours in his role as the managing director of International Interest, an organization that advises governments and companies on geopolitical risk, and he frequently appears on British news programs to discuss politics in the Middle East. Hamdi is known for his outspoken position in support of Palestine, for which he has gained visibility in the past two years. He spent most of 2024, for instance, telling people not to vote for Joe Biden. He also said, on a 2023 podcast, “I think that’s a very important message to the Muslims: we don’t celebrate bloodlust, we don’t celebrate death, and we don’t celebrate war. What Muslims are celebrating is not war, they’re celebrating the revival of a just cause that everybody thought was dead. This is an important distinction.”

Hamdi’s arrest was first announced by Laura Loomer, the far-right anti-Muslim troll with close ties to the Trump administration, via a triumphant post on X with the word “SCOOP” and a siren emoji: “As a direct result of Amy [Mekelburg]’s report and my relentless pressure on the State Department and Department of Homeland Security, US officials have now moved to take action against Hamdi’s visa status and his continued presence in this country.” Mekelburg, likewise a vocal Islamophobe on social media, where she is better known as Amy Mek, added on X later that day: “Let this be a warning to every Brotherhood front, every jihadist operative, and every Marxist collaborator who treats America as a platform: exposure without pressure achieves nothing.