A federal judge of Massachusetts temporarily prevented on Friday (28) the deportation of a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University who expressed support for Palestinians in the Israeli War in Gaza and was detained by US immigration authorities this week.
Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, was taken in custody by US immigration authorities near her Massachusetts home on Tuesday, according to a video showing the arrest by masked federal agents.
The US authorities.
The US internal security department has charged Ozturk without providing evidence of “participating in Hamas support activities”, a group that the US government classifies as a “foreign terrorist organization”.
Oncu Keceli, spokesman for the Turkey Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated that efforts to ensure Ozturk’s release follow, and added that consular and legal support is being provided by Turkish diplomatic missions in the US.
“Our Houston General Consul visited our citizen in the center where she is being kept in Louisiana on March 28. Our citizen’s requests and demands were referred to local authorities and her lawyer,” Keceli wrote in an X publication.
Our attempts to release our citizen Rümeysa Öztürk, who were detained in the USA; All kinds of consular service and legal support are offered by our Embassy in Vashington and the relevant Consulate General.
Our Consul General of Houston yesterday (28 March)…
– pioneer felt | Foreign Ministry Spokesperson (@SPAXTR_MFA)
It occurs a year after she co -conscribes an opinion article in the student newspaper Tufts criticizing the institution’s response to students’ appeals to divest from companies with Israeli ties and “recognize Palestinian genocide.”
Despite an order on Tuesday night requiring Fulbright’s doctoral student and fellow not transferred out of Massachusetts without a 48-hour notice, she is now in Louisiana.
In Friday’s decision, US district judge Denise Casper in Boston said that to give time to resolve if the court was still jurisdiction about the case, she was temporarily preventing Ozturk’s deportation.
She ordered the Trump government to respond to Ozturk’s complaint until Tuesday (1st).
