British journalist and political analyst Sami Hamdi is back home Thursday following his release from immigration detention at San Francisco International Airport.
Hamdi was detained Oct. 26 at SFO while he was in the middle of a U.S. speaking tour.
“I want to say that it’s wonderful to be back after being exonerated by two federal judges, both of whom found that there were serious breaches of freedom of speech,” Hamdi said during a news conference following his arrival at London’s Heathrow Airport.
“I want to say that this wasn’t just an attack on me, it was an attack on the freedoms of ordinary Americans and citizens worldwide,” he said.
Hamdi is managing director of The International Interest, a geopolitical consulting and advisory publication, and was in the U.S. on a valid visa that was “secretly” revoked by federal officials as a pretext for his detention, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an American Muslim civil rights group that worked to secure his release.
His lawyers argued that holding a journalist over a “manufactured” visa problem raised grave First Amendment and due process concerns and he was eventually allowed to return to the United Kingdom voluntarily, according to CAIR.
Hamdi and his supporters say his detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was a punishment for his criticisms of Israel, not for any alleged wrongdoing.
“I think that the reason that my visa was targeted was not because of anything that I was saying, but because Americans were listening,” he said. “Because now public opinion is shifting, because people are seeing the truth, there is a concern amongst bigots, amongst extremists, that if the truth gets out, it will truly change the world.”
Officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
