US court hears case of Turkish student detained after Gaza op-ed

WASHINGTON, United States (MNTV) — A US federal appeals court has heard arguments on behalf of Turkish student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was detained in March after co-authoring an op-ed criticizing Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argued that Ozturk’s six-week detention by immigration authorities was retaliation for her speech and violated constitutional protections.

“Ms. Ozturk was held behind bars for six weeks for writing an op-ed, and that never should have happened,” said ACLU lawyer Esha Bhandari after the hearing.

Ozturk, a Fulbright scholar and PhD student at Tufts University, was arrested on March 25 outside her home in Somerville, Massachusetts, by plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

Her visa was revoked, and she was transferred to a detention center in Louisiana, where she spent 45 days before a federal judge ordered her release in May, citing health concerns and lack of justification.

In a written statement, Ozturk said her piece called on Tufts to recognize the “Palestinian genocide” and listen to student voices.

“Unbelievably, it was my writing, a single opinion piece, that led to my arrest and ultimately landed me in a damp, crowded, and inhumane ICE for-profit prison,” she said.

Her detention followed targeting by the pro-Israel website Canary Mission, which had flagged her op-ed in The Tufts Daily.

The court also heard the case of Palestinian student Mohsen Mahdawi of Columbia University, who alleges similar retaliation for pro-Palestine activism.

A ruling in both cases is pending.