Arbitrary arrest and detention

A federal judge in Arizona has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to facilitate the return of Ahmed Soliman, 31, a Phoenix man deported to Equatorial Guinea in April without due process. District Judge John C. Hinderaker found the third-country removal violated U.S. law and Soliman's Fifth Amendment rights, citing "irreparable harm" after months of arbitrary detention, beatings, threats, and incommunicado confinement. DHS must take "all reasonable steps," including issuing travel documents and arranging transport at its own expense, and file status reports every three days. DHS attorneys did not dispute Soliman's account of abuse or that he was deported without a fear screening. The agency has 30 days to appeal.

Soliman, granted protection from removal to Egypt as a gay man, was targeted after speaking out about conditions facing dozens of U.S. deportees held at a decommissioned hotel in Equatorial Guinea under a secretive $7.5 million U.S.-brokered agreement. His case echoes that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and feeds into an ongoing Supreme Court dispute over third-country deportation protections, with more than 20 others still detained at the hotel.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has designated U.S. citizen Min Zin as wrongfully detained in China. Min Zin, founder of the Institute for Strategy and Policy – Myanmar and a Ph.D. candidate at UC Berkeley, was detained June 3 while attending an academic conference in Kunming, Yunnan, at the invitation of the Chinese government. Chinese authorities say he is suspected of espionage and endangering national security, an accusation his brother, Aung Maw Zin, has denied. Zin fled Burma after the 1988 student uprisings and became a U.S. citizen in 2012.

He is the second American academic given the wrongful-detention designation in recent months, following Dr. Youlin Chen. The State Department says it will continue advocating for Zin's release and for other U.S. citizens it says are arbitrarily detained or barred from leaving China. ISP-Myanmar has called for his immediate, unconditional release.