Student released from US detention following co-authoring Gaza opinion column states she has ‘faith in the American system of justice’. A Turkish graduate student at Tufts University in the US has returned to Boston after six weeks in a Louisiana immigration detention centre in what her lawyers refer to as a politically motivated assault on free speech.
After arriving at Boston Logan International Airport on Saturday, Rumeysa Ozturk said in a statement to reporters that she was looking forward to resuming her studies amid what has been an “awfully hard” time. I lost my freedom for the last 45 days and also lost my education at a critical time for my doctoral studies,” she said. “But I am extremely thankful for all the kindness, care and support.
A federal judge on Friday directed her release until a final ruling is made on her complaint that she was unlawfully detained. Ozturk, 30, was arrested on March 25 when immigration authorities arrested her in Massachusetts, cancelled her student visa and sent her to the detention centre in Louisiana.
Its backers think Ozturk, a Fulbright scholar from Turkiye, was targeted for having co-authored an opinion piece in her student paper, urging Tufts University to recognize Israel’s war on Gaza as a genocide. A genocide lawsuit against Israel is ongoing before the International Court of Justice. The former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell last week accused Israel of committing genocide.
Ozturk was accompanied by her attorneys and two of Massachusetts’s Democratic members of Congress, Representative Ayanna Pressley and Senator Edward Markey. Today is a great day as we bring you home, Rumeysa,” Markey said. “You’ve made millions and millions of people all over our country proud of how you’ve battled.
Ozturk’s attorneys claim her visa was cancelled without warning and she was denied access to legal representatives for over a day following her detention.
