Yale Students Arrested for Burning U.S. Flag

Three Yale students have been arrested for burning a U.S. flag (hat tip Joey Jojo Jr.).

Three Yale University students have been arrested on charges of setting fire to an American flag hanging from the porch of a Chapel Street home.

The three were arrested early Tuesday after police on patrol spotted the burning flag and tore it from the pole where it was mounted to the house, police said.

Said Hyder Akbar, 23, Nikolaos Angelopoulos, 19, and Farhad Anklesaria, also 19, were arrested on charges ranging from reckless endangerment to arson.

Angelopoulos and Anklesaria, who are two freshmen are both foreign citizens. Anklesaria is British and Angelopoulos is Greek.

Akbar, a senior, was born in Pakistan, according to police, but is a U.S. citizen. Both Anklesaria and Angelopoulos had to turn over their passports.

Akbar worked as an informal translator for U.S. forces during the invasion of Afghanistan and later published a memoir, "Come Back to Afghanistan," based on his experiences there, the Yale Daily News reported Wednesday.

At their arraignment in Superior Court a few hours after their arrests Tuesday, bond was kept at $25,000 for Angelopoulos and Akbar, but was reduced to $15,000 for Anklesaria. They remained jailed Tuesday night.

First of all, they should all be tossed out of Yale, but instead, they'll probably become campus celebrities. Second, the two foreign students should immediately be deported. Rather than being thankful for receiving an Ivy League education in this country, they spit in our faces. Akbar should be stripped of his citizenship and sent back to Pakistan, the ungrateful punk.