Kashmiri filmmaker detained by ICE on way to ‘art as resistance’ panel discussion

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A Kashmiri filmmaker was detained by Immigration and Customs agents while travelling to Washington DC, according to his friends and supporters.

Arfat Sheikh, the award-winning director of Saffron Kingdom, was detained at the Washington Dulles airport on 24 September.

His friends told The Independent that the filmmaker was “en route to an Art as Resistance panel, which was scheduled to take place at Busboys and Poets in Washington DC” when he was held. He had just stepped off his flight when he was surrounded and taken without a warrant by ICE agents, they said, “even as he presented his immigration paperwork”.

The Independent contacted ICE for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

Sheikh, 42, is being held at the Caroline Detention Facility in Virginia and is due to appear before an immigration judge for a procedural hearing and then a bond hearing on Tuesday.

Sheikh was travelling with fellow filmmaker and author Tara Dorabji, who was scheduled to speak on the panel on 26 September, addressing the experiences of the survivors of torture in Kashmir.

Sheikh’s Saffron Kingdom, his first feature film, explores displacement, conflict and identity in Kashmir, the restive Himalayan region held in part but claimed in whole by India and Pakistan.

Kashmir erupted in armed revolt against Indian rule in the 1980s, inviting a military crackdown, which led to decades of bloodshed and human rights abuses. It remains one of the most militarised regions in the world.

In an interview with The Independent in 2024, Sheikh said that he made the film to address what he described as the absence of Kashmiri voices in mainstream portrayals of the region.

“We have not been given the agency to tell our stories,” the filmmaker said.

“If you don’t speak up, don’t expect change,” he said. That is exactly what I am doing with this film. I am going out there, knowing it will have repercussions.”

The film, produced by Daffodil Studios, was screened in theatres, universities and cultural institutions in America and abroad.

It’s also available through the Watermelon Pictures streaming platform in more than 175 countries.

Saffron Kingdom received awards at several independent film festivals and Sheikh was named an Emerging Filmmaker Activist at the Teaneck International Film Festival in 2025.

According to a GoFundMe campaign launched for Sheikh, he “entered the United States legally on a student visa to pursue graduate studies in film at Georgia State University”.

“He has a pending immigration application and is authorised to live and work in the United States”, it said.

The campaign – launched by “a community of friends, colleagues, Americans, and family united to bring Arfat Sheikh home” – is seeking to raise $50,000 to pay for his legal representation.