BOSTON (AP) — Turkish citizens, a doctoral student at Tufts University, are being detained by federal agents without explanation, her lawyer said Wednesday.
Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, had just left her home in Summerville to meet a friend she was detained on Tuesday night. US Department of Homeland Security Attorney Mahsa Kambabai said in a petition filed in Boston Federal Court.
Surveillance video obtained by the Associated Press appears to show six people covering their faces.
“We are the police,” a group member can be heard saying on the video.
You can hear a man on camera saying, “Why are you hiding your face?”
Kambabai said that Oztalk, a Muslim, had met a friend of Iftar. During Ramadan.
“We were not aware of her whereabouts and were unable to contact her. We have not been charged with Rumeysa so far,” Khanbabai said in a statement.
Ozturk has a visa so she can study in the US, Kambabai said.
Neighbors said the arrest left him rattled.
“It looked like an invitation,” said Michael Matisse, a 32-year-old software engineer who picked up footage of the arrest by surveillance cameras. “They approach her and start grabbing her by covering her face. They’re covering their face. They’re in an unmarked vehicle.”
Tufts University President Sunil Kumar issued a statement early on Wednesday. The school said it received reports that federal authorities have detained international graduate students and that students’ visas have been terminated.
“The university had no prior knowledge of the incident and did not share any information with federal authorities prior to the event,” Kumar said.
Kumar did not name the students, but Tufts University spokesman Patrick Collins confirmed that Ozturk is a doctoral student at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
Messages sent to spokesmen for the DHS and immigration customs enforcement agencies were not immediately returned Wednesday.
US District Judge Indira Talwani issued an order to the government until Friday Tuesday answering the reasons why Ozturk is in custody. Talwani also ordered Ozturk not to move outside the Massachusetts area without providing advance notice.
Once given notice, Ozturk must not travel from the district for at least 48 hours, Talwani wrote.
Ozturk, one of four students last March, co-authored Tufts’ manipulation work daily, criticizing the university’s response to a Community Coalition Senate acceptance resolution requiring Tufts to “recognise the Palestinian genocide and disclose investments from companies with direct or inductive ties with Israel.”
“These resolutions are the product of a meaningful debate by the Senate and represent a sincere effort by Israel to hold it liable for a clear violation of international law,” Op-Ed said.
Ozturk’s friends said she would otherwise not be closely involved in protests against Israel. However, after OP-ED was released, her name, photographs and work history were featured by Canary Mission, a website that describes people who “promote the hatred of America, Israeli and Jews on university campuses in North America.” Op-Ed was the only example of Ozturk’s “anti-Israel activities.”
Other students and students have also recently revoked their visas or blocked them from entering the US. Attendance demonstration or Publicly expressed against the Palestinians. president Donald Trump The administration cites a rare voke legal law that grants the Secretary of State to revoke non-citizen visas that could be seen as a threat to the interests of US foreign policy.
According to an article in the 2021 Alumni Spotlight, prior to joining Tufts, she graduated with a Masters degree in the Developmental Psychology Program at Columbia University Teachers College in New York. Her focus was on children’s media. She was also Columbia’s 2018 Fulbright Scholar.
Reyan Birge, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University and a friend of Ozturk, focused deeply on her research and described her as a “soft, talkative, kind and kind soul” who was not closely involved in the protests on campus.
“She’s really interested in the overlap between the developmental aspects of cognition and the child’s media,” Bilge said. “She’s not an activist.”
The pair first met at Seheer University in Istanbul. There, Bilge oversaw the paper and then cooperated in cognitive research and co-published papers. They remained nearby after Ozturk arrived in the United States to continue his research on the Fulbright Scholarship.
“In the decade I know her, she has never been so badly told by anyone else, let alone an anti-Semitic or racist,” Bilge said.
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Offenhartz reported from New York. McCormack reported from Concord, New Hampshire.
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