In a court filing this week, Indian post-doctoral fellow Badar Khan Suri’s lawyer, Hassan Ahmad, said Suri and his Palestinian-American wife Mapheze Saleh “have long been doxxed and smeared”, Al Jazeera reports.

Saleh’s photograph has been published online, while information relating to her former employment with Al Jazeera and her birthplace in Gaza City have been cited as evidence of “her alleged ties with Hamas”, the filing said.

Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown, said Saleh’s father, Ahmed Yousef, is a former adviser to Hamas. However, Hashemi added, Suri was never outwardly political on campus and did not attend pro-Palestine protests.