Alert: Rumeysa Ozturk Disappeared

Another kidnapping by ICE

Late yesterday afternoon (March 25th), at least 6 undercover ICE agents approached doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk outside her apartment. They detained her, took her cellphone and backpack, cuffed her, and shuffled her off to a waiting unmarked vehicle. Her crime? Co-authoring an Op-Ed in the student newspaper pleading for an end to the Gazan Genocide and demanding that Tufts address the issue, as requested by resolutions from the student government.

Video has been released of the “arrest”, and it is terrifying. Imagine being a young woman walking on the street and having this happen to you. Imagine being that woman’s parents and seeing your daughter grabbed up like this.

Ozturk was identified by Canary Mission, a pro-Israel website that identifies and doxxes pro-Palestinian students and faculty, posting their pictures, school, and other identifying information on their website. Obviously this is incredibly dangerous, as it gives less than stable individuals far too much information should they wish to do harm. It also is done without any sort of due process, so in theory anyone could be added to this website. It would be bad enough to be publicly identified like that, by a private company that is not in any way connected to law enforcement. Worse still is that Ozturk’s appearance on this website appears to be the catalyst that resulted in her student visa being canceled and her being detained.

I cannot stress enough how bad this is. The Trump administration is using a bullshit excuse of “fighting antisemitism” as a means to remove people who they do not like. It is really that simple. Ozturk broke no laws. She did not “provide aid to a terrorist organization”. She could not have disrupted the Administration’s foreign policy (the excuse used with Khalil) because she wrote the op-ed while the Biden administration was in place. She did nothing disallowed by Tuft’s student code of conduct, which in part reads:

[a]ctive citizenship, including exercising free speech and engaging in protests, gatherings, and demonstrations, is a vital part of the Tufts community

I fear that her case will not get the same level of coverage as Mohammed Khalil’s did, simply because we had the El Salvador rendition in the interim. But this is yet another brazen attack on the First Amendment, and if it is not rebuked as loudly and widely as was done for Khalil and the Venezuelan deportees, then the Administration is winning.

We must not let that happen, for when they are finished rounding up the immigrants, who will they come for next?

Take Care and Stay Strong