Judge orders the release of student detained for six weeks after writing opinion piece
A federal judge has ordered the release of a student from Turkey who was detained in a US immigration facility for six weeks after she co-wrote an opinion piece expressing support for the Palestinian people.
Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old doctoral student at Tufts University, was detained near her Massachusetts home in March following the publication of the article. It criticised the university’s response to the war in Gaza and accused Israel of committing genocide.
Shortly after her detention, a court blocked attempts to deport her from the US, but she had been held in detention ever since.
However, on Friday, US District Judge William Sessions granted Ms Ozturk bail.
He said she had raised a substantial claim that the sole reason she was detained was “simply and purely the expression that she made or shared in the op-ed in violation of her First Amendment rights”.
The judge added: “Her continued detention potentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of individuals in this country who are not citizens.”
Ms Ozturk, who appeared in court via video link from the detention facility in Louisiana, could be seen hugging one of her lawyers after the judge ordered her release. The court will hold a further hearing about her case at a later date.
She reported suffering a series of asthma attacks while in detention, which she blamed on the “challenging” conditions of her confinement in an overly-packed space with poor ventilation.
Ms Ozturk suffered a further asthma attack in the middle of Friday’s hearing.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller claimed the judge’s ruling was another example of what he described as a “judicial coup” in the US.
“We cannot individually litigate every single visa that we want to revoke,” Miller told reporters.