Kashmiri filmmaker Arfat Sheikh was detained by ICE agents at Dulles airport on September 24. He was travelling with Tara Dorabji for an event in Washington, DC. Dorabji said, "Arfat said to me, 'Tara, Tara. This is ICE. They have come for me.'" Friends have now started a campaign.
A Kashmiri-born filmmaker, Arfat Sheikh, has allegedly been detained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the United States. Sheikh's film, Saffron Kingdom, has won several awards at American film festivals, and his storytelling is widely acclaimed.
In a statement, filmmaker Tara Dorabji, who was accompanying Sheikh, said they were travelling together from San Francisco International Airport to Dulles on September 24. "When we landed at Dulles, I was sitting towards the back of the plane, and Arfat exited before me. As I got off the plane, I walked by Arfat, without realising that he had been pulled aside on the jetway."
Dorabji says that Arfat called out to her, and as she turned around, "he was surrounded by numerous men".
"Arfat said to me, 'Tara, Tara. This is ICE. They have come for me.' The men were in plain clothes and not wearing any uniforms that indicated that they were federal agents. During the entire interaction, I never saw any of the men present a warrant or say why they were taking Arfat. They took Arfat Sheikh off the jetway onto the tarmac. He did not resist. I was shaking and could barely move," she claimed.
Dorabji is an author and filmmaker. Her documentary film series on human rights defenders in Kashmir won awards at more than a dozen film festivals in Asia and the US.
The two were on their way to Washington, DC, for the "Art as Resistance" event at Busboys and Poets. A campaign to "free Arfat" has been launched by friends and acquaintances.
In her statement, Dorabji emphasised that Arfat dedicated his life to speaking truth and defending human rights: "He is one of the kindest and most courageous people I know. He came to the United States legally as a film student to share about the human rights atrocities in Kashmir."
She also talked about his film, Saffron Kingdom, "created as a form of collective memory and truth-telling to tell the story of his people". "It is devastating that someone who spent years bringing stories of human rights violations in war-torn regions to international audiences is in ICE detention, facing the conditions Arfat has dedicated his life to end," she said.
The 42-year-old filmmaker is the son of Ghulam Nabi Sheikh, a celebrated Kashmiri folk singer. Sheikh died in 2003 from falling off a train when he was travelling from Jammu to Delhi with his daughter. Over the years, the family has called the official version of the events surrounding his death into question.
Arfat grew up in the Valley and moved to the US as a student in 2019. As per the campaign, he filed for asylum in 2020 and has been living in Alexandria, Virginia.