Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral candidate at Tufts University, returned to Massachusetts’s Boston on Saturday evening after a federal judge ordered her release from a Louisiana detention facility where she had been held for six weeks. Her arrest, stemming from an op-ed she co-authored, sparked national criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and raised alarm over free speech rights.Ozturk, 30, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in plainclothes on March 25 while walking to an iftar dinner in Somerville, Massachusetts. She was surrounded by armed officers who confiscated her phone and transported her across multiple states before jailing her in Basile, Louisiana. A neighbour recorded the scene, with one bystander heard asking, “Is this a kidnapping?”According to The New York Times, Ozturk’s detention followed the revocation of her student visa, which the state department claimed had been pulled due to her co-authorship of an op-ed that allegedly created a “hostile environment for Jewish students” and expressed support for a group later temporarily banned from campus.
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According to US city determine William Sessions, the department of homeland security even accused her of supporting Hamas but provided no further information besides the newspaper. Sessions said during Friday’s bail hearing that” there is no evidence here as the desire, absent the attention of the op-ed,” as CBS News quoted him as saying. He asserted that Ozturk was hardly a flight risk or a threat to public health and that her case might stifle speech in thousands of non-citizens. Ozturk expressed her comfort and love in her first public presence following her release at Boston Logan International Airport. She claimed that America is the world’s best politics. ” I have faith in the American fairness technique.” She also thanked her followers for their support, words, publications read over the telephone, and other efforts to keep her scientific work moving. She continued,” So much love,” The New York Times reported. According to CBS News, Ozturk, a Fulbright professor and doctoral student focusing on children’s media, she had 12 asthma attacks while she was in bed and had worsening symptoms as a result of congestion and a lack of proper care. Immigration opponents, lawmakers, and school leaders reacted to her incarceration conditions. Senator Ed Markey and Representative Ayanna Pressley greeted her at the airports. It’s a triumph for justice, declared Markey. Pressley added,” We never forgot about you… We will not rest until you are completely exonerated,” adding in a clear mental tone. According to a school spokesman, they hoped Ozturk had soon rejoin her intellectual body, and President Sunil Kumar has been outspoken in urging her release. Ozturk is also facing deportation proceedings, which the court confirmed may continue differently in Louisiana despite being free. On May 22, she may show up in a Vermont court to testify in jury about whether her First Amendment and due process rights were violated. Her legal group contends that her imprisonment sets a dangerous precedent, and that her attorney’s claim that someone could face jail time” for writing a single media content” was made during the hearing. Despite the suffering, Ozturk maintains optimism. She vowed to fight the courts and resume her postgraduate studies while continuing to pursue her convictions.
