WASHINGTON — Aliya Rahman, a Minnesota woman who was a guest at Tuesday’s State of the Union address by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), was arrested during the speech and required hospital treatment, Rahman and Omar said.
Rahman quietly stood up during a portion of President Donald Trump’s speech in which he called on Democrats to restore funding to the Department of Homeland Security. Those around her remained seated. Capitol Police approached and asked Rahman to sit down, but she refused.
The crowd around Lerman gave a standing ovation during her conversation with Capitol Police officers, but Lerman tried to explain to the officers that this was why they shouldn’t force her to leave.
Capitol Police grabbed Rahman, who was walking on crutches, and began pulling him toward the exit, an action that prompted an outcry from one of the other patrons in the gallery, who asked police to refrain from being aggressive toward Rahman.
Mr. Rahman is a member of “Democracy Now! He said this in an interview with Amy Goodman. She was taken into custody by Capitol Police and remained at the hospital until just before 4 a.m.
“I wasn’t just taken away and arrested. I was arrested so physically that two other attendees upstairs attempted to intervene with the officer pulling on my shoulders after I told them I had a torn rotator cuff tendon and multiple cartilage tears in both shoulders,” she said.
Rahman told Goodman that the House sergeant-at-arms told him he was arrested because “I was standing there. Quiet. No buttons, no facial expressions, no gestures, no signs. I didn’t make a sound. I stood up.”
“There are only two things you can do at the State of the Union: sit down or stand up. All kinds of people were on their feet all night, including me,” Rahman said.
She said in an interview that she suffered a torn rotator cuff and torn cartilage when federal agents in Minneapolis pulled her from her car as she drove through a street where anti-immigrant protests were taking place last month. Rahman said he was trying to go see a doctor.
Capitol Police said Rahman was arrested on charges of misconduct and obstruction of Congress.
“All State of the Union tickets clearly explain that demonstrations are prohibited,” the Capitol Police said in a statement. “The guests were told to sit down, but they refused to comply with our lawful orders. It is illegal to obstruct Congress or demonstrate at the Capitol.”
Omar on Wednesday condemned Rahman’s arrest and called for a “full explanation of why this arrest occurred.”
“The heavy-handed treatment of peaceful guests sends a chilling message about the state of our democracy,” she said in a statement.
Omar said Rahman was taken to George Washington University Hospital for treatment and then booked into Capitol Police headquarters. Rahman is a disabled person with autism and a traumatic brain injury from Minneapolis, according to a description provided by Omar’s office.
In recent months, Minneapolis has been at the center of the Trump administration’s violent crackdown on immigration as part of the so-called “Operation Metro Surge.”
During the operation, federal agents shot several people, killing Americans Renee Good and Alex Preti. Congressional Democrats are demanding the Department of Homeland Security change its immigration enforcement tactics, refusing to vote in favor of a bill that would fund the department and force the government into a partial shutdown.
