BOSTON, US

Türkiye's Consul General in Boston Halime Digdem Buner said the consulate will continue monitoring the legal process of Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was recently released after six weeks in detention for supporting Palestine.

Speaking to Anadolu about Ozturk's detention and release process, Buner said she has been following the case very closely from the beginning.

She noted that Ozturk participated in her most recent hearing online from the detention center, accompanied by her attorneys and officials from Türkiye's Consulate General in Houston.

Following her release, she got in contact with officials from Türkiye's Consulate General in Houston and Türkiye's Ambassador to Washington Sedat Onal, Buner said.

The consul general said she plans to personally welcome Ozturk in Boston, adding: "We will continue to monitor these two cases."

Ozturk's detention

Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University in Massachusetts, was detained by six masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers on March 25 for co-authoring an op-ed last year about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the school’s student newspaper.

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.