Newly released on bail after nearly six weeks in detention in the US for her support for Palestine, a Turkish doctoral student thanked those who supported her throughout her detention, media reports said Friday.
According to CBS News, Tufts University Student Rumeysa Ozturk spoke briefly to the press after leaving the immigration detention center in Louisiana where she had been held since late March.
“Thank you so much for all the support and love,” she told supporters. “I am a little bit tired so I will take some rest but I really appreciate you being here.”
Footage from her release showed a crowd of supporters cheering as Ozturk exited the facility.
– ARREST, LEGAL PROCESS
Ozturk was detained on March 25 in Massachusetts by six Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in plainclothes while on her way to a dinner for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan with friends.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio later announced that her student visa had been revoked and that she would be deported.
Rubio had accused over 300 foreign students of being “Hamas supporters,” calling them “anti-Israel lunatics,” but orders were issued for their detention and deportation without giving them due process to defend themselves.
Critics also said deporting them for expressing them views violated their constitutional right to free speech-a right extended to everyone in the US, whether citizen or not.
A US federal judge, Denise Casper, halted Ozturk’s deportation process, and another judge, William Sessions of the US District Court in Vermont, ordered her release on bail.
Tufts University had called for the release of Ozturk, and in a statement to the court, University President Sunil Kumar said her detention had “paralyzed the school’s international community” and raised serious concerns about campus safety.