On Tuesday, nearly two weeks after US immigration agents detained Arfat Sheikh as he was getting off a plane at Washington Dulles International Airport, the Kashmir-born filmmaker was scheduled to have a bail hearing at an immigration court in Virginia at 8.30 am local time.
But until the evening, the hearing had yet to take place, a friend of his told Scroll. Sheikh, who has been in the US since 2019, was supposed to walk out of the Caroline Detention Facility in Virginia on Wednesday. It is unclear when that will now happen.
Sheikh, 42, was detained a little after 3 pm on September 24 after arriving in Washington DC from San Francisco. He was travelling with filmmaker and author Tara Dorabji, who was due to speak about survivors of torture in Kashmir at an event on September 26 titled “Art as Resistance”.
Dorabji said Sheikh had walked out ahead of her after they landed, Kashmir Times reported. As she was leaving the plane, she saw him surrounded by men in plain clothes.
“Arfat called out to me, and I turned around,” she said. “Arfat said to me, ‘Tara, Tara. This is ICE. They have come for me.’”
A video shared by an Instagram page titled “freearfatsheikh” showed Sheikh being taken away by at least five...
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