BOSTON: A federal judge in Massachusetts on Friday temporarily barred the deportation of a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University, who voiced support for Palestinians in Israel’s war in Gaza and was detained by US immigration officials this week.
Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, was taken into custody by US immigration authorities near her Massachusetts home on Tuesday, according to a video showing the arrest by masked federal agents. US officials revoked her visa.
The US Department of Homeland Security has accused Ozturk, without providing evidence, of “engaging in activities in support of Hamas,” a group which the US government categorizes as a “foreign terrorist organization.”
Oncu Keceli, a spokesperson for Turkiye’s foreign ministry, said efforts to secure Ozturk’s release continued, adding consular and legal support was being provided by Turkish diplomatic missions in the US
“Our Houston Consul General visited our citizen in the center where she is being held in Louisiana on March 28. Our citizen’s requests and demands have been forwarded to local authorities and her lawyer,” Keceli said in a post on X.
Ozturk’s arrest came a year after she co-authored an opinion piece in Tufts’ student newspaper criticizing the university’s response to calls by students to divest from companies with ties to Israel and to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide.”
A lawyer soon after sued to secure her release, and on Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union joined her legal defense team, filing a revised lawsuit saying her detention violates her rights to free speech and due process.
Despite a Tuesday night order requiring the PhD student and Fulbright Scholar not to be moved out of Massachusetts without 48 hours’ notice, she is now in Louisiana.
In Friday’s order, US District Judge Denise Casper in Boston said that to provide time to resolve whether her court retained jurisdiction over the case, she was barring Ozturk’s deportation temporarily.
She ordered the Trump administration to respond to Ozturk’s complaint by Tuesday.
Mahsa Khanbabai, a lawyer for Ozturk, called the decision “a first step in getting Rumeysa released and back home to Boston so she can continue her studies.”
The DHS had no immediate comment.
President Donald Trump has pledged to deport foreign pro-Palestinian protesters and has accused them of supporting Hamas, being antisemitic and posing foreign policy hurdles.
Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the Trump administration conflates their criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza and their advocacy for Palestinian rights with antisemitism and support for Hamas.
Several students and protesters have had their visas revoked by the Trump administration, which says it may have revoked over 300 visas.
US judge halts deportation of Turkish student at Tufts
https://arab.news/9fy8k
US judge halts deportation of Turkish student at Tufts
- Oncu Keceli, a spokesperson for Turkiye’s foreign ministry, said efforts to secure Ozturk’s release continued
- US District Judge Denise Casper in Boston said that to provide time to resolve whether her court retained jurisdiction over the case, she was barring Ozturk’s deportation temporarily
Top Australian writers’ festival canceled after Palestinian author barred
SYDNEY: One of Australia’s top writers’ festivals was canceled on Tuesday, after 180 authors boycotted the event and its director resigned saying she could not be party to silencing a Palestinian author and warned moves to ban protests and slogans after the Bondi Beach mass shooting threatened free speech.
Louise Adler, the Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors, said on Tuesday she was quitting her role at the Adelaide Writers’ Week in February, following a decision by the festival’s board to disinvite a Palestinian-Australian author.
The novelist and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah said the move to bar her was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday announced a national day of mourning would be held on January 22 to remember the 15 people killed in last month’s shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach.
Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by the Islamic State militant group, and the incident sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism, and prompted state and federal government moves to tighten hate speech laws.
The Adelaide Festival board said on Tuesday its decision last week to disinvite Abdel-Fattah, on the grounds it would not be culturally sensitive for her to appear at the literary event “so soon after Bondi,” was made “out of respect for a community experiencing the pain from a devastating event.”
“Instead, this decision has created more division and for that we express our sincere apologies,” the board said in a statement.
The event would not go ahead and remaining board members will step down, it added.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, British author Zadie Smith, Australian author Kathy Lette, Pulitzer Prize-winning American Percival Everett and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis are among the authors who said they would no longer appear at the festival in South Australia state, Australian media reported.
The festival board on Tuesday apologized to Abdel-Fattah for “how the decision was represented.”
“This is not about identity or dissent but rather a continuing rapid shift in the national discourse around the breadth of freedom of expression in our nation following Australia’s worst terror attack in history,” it added.
Abdel-Fattah wrote on social media that she did not accept the apology, saying she had nothing to do with the Bondi attack, “nor did any Palestinian.”
Adler earlier wrote in The Guardian that the board’s decision to disinvite Abdel-Fattah “weakens freedom of speech and is the harbinger of a less free nation, where lobbying and political pressure determine who gets to speak and who doesn’t.”
The South Australian state government has appointed a new festival board.
