This just in from our lawyers in Vermont: Judge William Sessions III ruled this afternoon that our client Rümeysa Öztürk must be released on bail immediately. She will return home to Massachusetts as her case proceeds. This is a huge win for Rümeysa and for our Constitutional rights.
This comes after a decision earlier in the week from an appeals court that ruled our client Rümeysa Öztürk must be transferred back to Vermont from Louisiana within a week – blocking the Trump administration’s cruel attempt to keep Rümeysa imprisoned thousands of miles away from her community.
As a reminder, Rümeysa has suffered six weeks in crowded confinement without adequate access to medical care and in conditions that doctors say risk exacerbating her asthma attacks.
Her detention – over an op-ed she co-authored in her student newspaper – is as cruel as it is unconstitutional. Today, we celebrate her release and vow to keep fighting until she’s free for good, alongside our co-counsel ACLU of Massachusetts, ACLU of Vermont, Mahsa Khanbabai, clear, and Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP.
Because no one should be arrested and imprisoned for their political views.
The ACLU is fighting for the freedom of all those unjustly detained for exercising their First Amendment rights, including Mahmoud Khalil, Dr. Badar Khan Suri, Mohsen Mahdawi, and other international students and scholars who have been targeted by the Trump administration in retaliation for their constitutionally protected speech.
Our right to free speech includes advocacy for Palestine, Israel, or any population, movement, or cause. That’s not an opinion: it’s central to the Constitution.
And we will continue to relentlessly defend every person’s First Amendment right to speak freely – without fear of unlawful retaliation or deportation by our government.
Thank you as always for being with us in this most critical fight and know the ACLU is here for the long haul.
More to come,
The ACLU Team
ACLU of Washington
P.O. Box 2728
Seattle, WA 98111-2728