Turkey condemned on Thursday the arrest in the US of a Turkish citizen and student in favour of the Palestinian cause, Rümeysa Öztürk, who was intercepted by masked federal agents in the street in an incident that was recorded on video by witnesses. The arrest could be related to an op-ed she wrote in a university newspaper in which she accused the Israeli state of committing genocide in Gaza and called for a boycott of Israeli companies.
In statements made on Thursday from Istanbul, the Turkish Minister of Justice, Yılmaz Tunç, described the arrest of Rümeysa for the simple fact of ‘defending the Palestinian cause in Gaza’ as ‘unacceptable’. ‘Detaining her simply for supporting Palestine and subjecting her to this unjust treatment is unacceptable,’ insisted the minister, criticising the circumstances and the behaviour of the federal agents during the arrest.
Rümeysa Öztürk, a 30-year-old student completing a doctorate at Tufts University, a private university in Massachusetts (USA), was intercepted by several federal agents on the evening of 25 March shortly after leaving her home in Somerville, according to Turkish and international media reports.
In a video recorded during the incident, six people with their faces covered can be seen taking away her rucksack and mobile phone and leading away the woman, who was visibly nervous but did not resist. ‘We are the police,’ one of the members of the group is heard saying. Another person witnessing the events asks them, ‘Why are you hiding your faces?’ At the time of her arrest, the student was on her way to celebrate iftar, the dinner that marks the breaking of the fast during Ramadan.
Rümeysa is still in custody and her visa has been revoked
According to the latest information, Rümeysa has been detained by immigration officials in the United States, whose authorities accuse her of participating in activities in support of the Palestinian group Hamas, accusations that her family and her lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai, strongly reject.
Although for the moment no formal charges have been filed against the student, a spokesperson for the US Department of Homeland Security confirmed that she is still detained at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Centre in Louisiana and that her visa has been revoked for being ‘engaged in activities in support of Hamas’, although CNN reported that details about those activities were not specified.
Last year, Rümeysa Öztürk co-authored an opinion article in the newspaper published by the private university where she studies, The Tufts Daily, in which she called on the university to recognise the Israeli genocide in Palestine and for a boycott of companies with links to Israel. Her arrest comes just after a well-known pro-Israel website in the US, Canary Mission, which specialises in naming those who speak out against Israel and in favour of the Palestinians, launched a harassment campaign against the Turkish activist .
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Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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