Category World News

A Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University in the United States has returned to Boston after spending more than six weeks in an immigration detention centre in Louisiana in what her lawyers call a politically motivated crackdown on free speech.

Upon arrival at Boston Logan International Airport, Rumeysa Ozturk told reporters on Saturday that she was excited to get back to her studies during what has been a “very difficult” period.

“In the last 45 days, I lost both my freedom and also my education during a crucial time for my doctoral studies,” she said. “But I am so grateful for all the support, kindness and care.”

A federal judge on Friday ordered her release pending a final decision on her claim that she was illegally detained.

Ozturk, 30, was detained on March 25 when immigration officials arrested her in Massachusetts, revoked her student visa and transferred her to the detention facility in Louisiana.

Supporters believe Ozturk, a Fulbright scholar from Turkiye, was targeted for having co-written an opinion article in her student newspaper, calling on Tufts University to acknowledge Israel’s war on Gaza as a genocide.

A genocide case against Israel is under way at the International Court of Justice. Last week, the former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell accused Israel of committing genocide.

Ozturk was joined by her lawyers and two of Massachusetts’s Democratic members of Congress, Senator Edward Markey and Representative Ayanna Pressley.

“Today is a tremendous day as we welcome you back, Rumeysa,” Markey said. “You have made millions and millions of people across our country so proud of the way you have fought.”

Ozturk’s lawyers say her visa was revoked without notice and she was not allowed to contact legal counsel for more than a day after her arrest.

Appearing in court via video on Friday, Ozturk spoke of her deteriorating health, including severe asthma attacks in detention, and her hopes of continuing her doctoral research on children and social media.

US District Judge William Sessions granted Ozturk bail, saying she presented no flight risk or danger to the public. He found that her claim of unlawful detention raised serious constitutional questions, including potential violations of her rights to free speech and due process.

Ozturk’s case highlights a practice that has become common under President Donald Trump’s administration. Foreign students have been arrested and hundreds of their student visas revoked for their pro-Palestine views.

Mahmoud Khalil, who led the protests against Israel’s war on Gaza at Columbia University in New York, was among the first students detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on March 8. He remains in custody.

The Trump administration has been accused of conflating criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson previously accused Ozturk, without evidence, of supporting Hamas, which has been designated as a “terrorist” group by the US.

Ozturk denied any wrongdoing and said she will continue to pursue her case. “I have faith in the American system of justice,” she said.

Her legal battle continues in Vermont while immigration hearings proceed separately in Louisiana, where she may participate remotely.

Videos of her arrest, which show masked plainclothes officers taking her from a street in the Boston suburb of Somerville, Massachusetts, went viral and sent a chill across US university campuses.

Her lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union argued that her arrest and detention were unlawfully designed to punish her for speech protected by the US Constitution’s First Amendment and to chill the speech of others.

Pressley, who with two other Democratic members of Congress from Massachusetts visited Ozturk while she was in custody, said she was held in “squalid, inhumane conditions” and denied proper medical care for worsening asthma attacks.

Carrara’s connection to anarchism began nearly 150 years ago, when anarchist ideals found fertile ground among the downtrodden workers in the marble quarries. Led by Alberto Meschi, Carrara’s quarrymen became the first in Italy to win a six-and-a-half-hour workday in the early 20th century. Anarchist circles and collectives emerged in nearly every town and neighbourhood across the Carrara region. In Gragnana, a village in the Apuan Alps, Italy’s oldest anarchist circle, “Errico Malatesta”, founded in 1885, still operates to this day.

“I’m one of those who love this town and want it to thrive,” says Rosmunda, who believes the town has been hard-hit by years of austerity policies, introduced by the government following the global financial crisis of 2008, and underinvestment.

Only a small part of marble-extraction profits now flow back to the municipality, and Carrara and surrounding villages have been left with inadequate social housing, stripped-down health and childcare services and failing public transport.

“It’s hard – there’s no social welfare, public services are falling apart,” Rosmunda says. “The wealth [from marble] stays in very few hands.”

Sculptor Chantal Stropeni adds: “Carrara is a paradox. There’s immense wealth – marble – and yet deep poverty, even among artists. To resist, we’ve formed a collective sculpture studio called Ponte di Ferro. There are 14 of us. We want to approach art differently – collectively. Carrara is a workshop: It’s easy to create here, but incredibly hard to see. The town is falling apart, and maybe that works in its favour: No one pays attention, no one asks questions.”

In the meantime, the mountains are disappearing – at a rate of 4 million to 5 million tonnes per year. The town is growing poorer. Automation has replaced many quarry jobs such as block cutting, drilling, splitting, chiselling and materials removal. Local jobs have dropped from 800 to about 600 in recent years.

But resistance in this region has a long legacy. “We’ve been fighting to reduce the impact of the extractive system – organising events, protests, talks and legal actions – for more than 30 years,” says Paola Antonioli, president of Legambiente Carrara, an Italian environmental nonprofit organisation. “Sure, the road is long. But something is shifting. Collective consciousness is beginning to awaken.”

The struggle to obtain rare earth elements is fast becoming a national security issue.

Anthony Edwards poured in a game-high 36 points, Julius Randle had 24 as part of a triple-double, and the Minnesota Timberwolves wrested back home-court advantage in their second-round playoff series against the Golden State Warriors with a 102-97 triumph in San Francisco, California.

Game 4 in the Western Conference best-of-seven series is scheduled for Monday night in San Francisco, with the sixth-seeded Timberwolves leading 2-1.

Jimmy Butler III had a team-high 33 points on Saturday for seventh-seeded Golden State, which played without star guard Stephen Curry, out with a strained left hamstring.

The tightly contested game saw the Warriors clinging within 84-82 before two game-disqualifying fouls on defensive ace Draymond Green within 18 seconds inside the final five minutes.

The Timberwolves took control from there, getting a triple from Jaden McDaniels and a three-point play from Rudy Gobert, the latter creating a six-point cushion for the visitors with 2:05 to play.

“We’re making some shots, for sure,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said. “We’re getting stops. We were getting stops throughout the regular season. We’re just winning the possession battle in clutch time now. We’re just not — we’re not giving the ball back on cheap turnovers. We’re not giving up as many or any second-chance opportunities.”

A 3-pointer by Edwards, his fifth of the game, all but clinched Minnesota’s second consecutive win with 1:19 to go.

Edwards’s 36 points were his second-most this postseason, topped only by a 43-point explosion in Game 4 against the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round. He hit 13 of his 28 shots on Saturday.

“The team defence was really good,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “Held them to 102. That’s a pretty good number. But Randle and Edwards really both got going in the second half, and that was the key. We couldn’t quite contain them, especially in the fourth, and that was the difference.”

Randle complemented his 24 points with 10 rebounds, a game-high 12 assists and three steals for the Timberwolves, who outshot the hosts 43.9 percent to 43.2 percent in a defensive struggle.

“He’s playing with so much force and determination,” Finch said of Randle. “He’s going out there early and aggressive, and he’s exerting a tonne of energy on the defensive end with his body and his rebounding. He’s playing a complete game for us, no doubt.”

McDaniels added 15 points and Gobert had a game-high 13 rebounds for Minnesota, which went 2-1 on the road in its 4-1 first-round series win against the Lakers.

Butler’s 33 points on 12-for-26 shooting were his most since he had 35 for the Miami Heat in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals at Boston in 2023. He also found time for seven rebounds and a team-high seven assists.

“Man, Jimmy was incredible,” Kerr said. “He really controlled the game for us and put us in a position to win, and we just couldn’t close it out. But he was brilliant all night.”

Jonathan Kuminga, pressed into increased playing time as the Warriors looked to fill the void of Curry’s regular scoring, backed Butler with a postseason career-high 30 points. He had totalled just 43 in Golden State’s first nine playoff games.

“JK [Jonathan Kuminga] played one of the best games of his life,” Kerr said. “It was fantastic to see. You can see how necessary he is in this matchup, especially without Steph [Curry].”

Buddy Hield shot 4-for-8 on 3-pointers to account for a majority of his 14 points for the Warriors, while Brandin Podziemski collected a team-high eight rebounds on a night when he shot 1-for-10.

Celtics bury Knicks in Game 3

In an earlier playoff game on Saturday, Jayson Tatum finished with 22 points, nine rebounds and seven assists, and the Boston Celtics pulled away for a 115-93 win over the host New York Knicks in Game 3 of their second-round Eastern Conference series.

Payton Pritchard scored a team-high 23 points off the bench for Boston, which cut the Knicks’ lead to 2-1 in the best-of-seven series. Jaylen Brown added 19 points, and Derrick White had 17.

Jalen Brunson scored 27 points on 9-for-21 shooting to lead the Knicks. Karl-Anthony Towns finished with 21 points and 15 rebounds.

After struggling to score in the first two games of the series, the Celtics found their rhythm on offence. Boston shot 48.2 percent (40 of 83) overall and 50 percent (20 of 40) from 3-point range, and New York shot 40 percent (32 of 80) from the field and 20 percent (5 of 25) from beyond the arc.

“They got some clean looks early, and they see it go in; that gives them confidence. Then it’s hard to shut them off,” said Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau. “We have to have greater awareness. We can’t allow missed shots to take away from [our] defensive tenacity. We’ve got to bounce back.”

Tatum made a basket to put Boston on top 112-89 with 2:40 remaining. He assisted on a 3-pointer by Al Horford on the next possession, and Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla rested his starters for the remainder of the game with the score out of reach.

“This is the fun part. You don’t get into the journey for it to be easy,” said Mazzulla. “It’s been dark, but in a good way. You’ve just got to tap into your darkness, and that’s it.”

Game 4 in the best-of-seven series will be played in New York on Monday.

Turkish PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk has been released six weeks after plainclothes ICE agents bundled her into a van and held her in an immigration detention centre in Louisiana. The Trump administration had revoked her student visa over an article she co-authored criticising Tufts University’s ties to Israel.