A PhD student was snatched by masked officers in broad daylight. Then she was flown 1,500 miles away
Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk was walking alone Tuesday night to meet friends at a dinner where they would break their 13-hour Ramadan fast when six plainclothes officers suddenly encircled her on the street near her apartment in Somerville, Massachusetts, surveillance video shows.
The 30-year-old shrieked in fear when an officer in a hooded sweatshirt and hat grabbed her by the wrists as another pulled out a concealed badge on a lanyard and confiscated her cell phone.
Soon afterward, the swarm of officers who had surrounded her on the sidewalk pulled cloth coverings over their mouths and noses, some of them wearing sunglasses.
“We’re the police,” the officers said.
“Yeah, you don’t look like it. Why are you hiding your faces?” a person not seen in the video can be heard responding.
The masked officers handcuffed Ozturk and held onto each of her arms, the video shows.
One minute after the encounter began, Ozturk was led into an SUV and driven away.
The international student – who is originally from Turkey and on a valid F-1 student visa – was then driven “across multiple states,” including multiple government offices in New England, Ozturk’s legal team said.
The next morning, she was flown more than 1,500 miles away from her home to a staging facility in Alexandria, Louisiana – despite a court order about six hours after her arrest that Ozturk not be moved outside Massachusetts without 48 hours’ notice.
While in transit to Louisiana, Ozturk suffered from an asthma attack, according to an amended habeas corpus petition filed Friday. Throughout that period of time, Ozturk was not charged or given the opportunity to speak with a lawyer, according to the spokesperson.
Then, she eventually ended up at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, Louisiana.
Ozturk is one of several international university students facing deportation following a Trump administration order to crack down on pro-Palestinian demonstrations on college campuses.
The arrests of scholars and students at the hands of masked law enforcement officers – who have taken them into custody by ambushing them on city streets and near their homes – have sent a chill across the international student community.
After Ozturk’s arrest, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said she “engaged in activities in support of Hamas” in a Wednesday statement, without specifying what those alleged activities were. Her lawyers say she is unfairly being punished for speaking out in favor of Palestinian rights.
While a judge has since halted her deportation, Ozturk’s lawyers continue to fight for her release.
She’s not a terrorist, she was merely critical of Israeli and American Foreign Policy, and for that, for expressing an opinion contrary to MAGA fascists and Fra Right foaming Fanatics, she deserves all she gets.
Masked secret Police arresting people on the streets for thoughts crimes.
Let that sink in.
I have argued and will continue to argue, that Trump is a fascist and that he will turn America into a Police State.
He has started.
Rumeysa Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil are moderate voices arguing against the genocide and ethnic cleansing war crimes of Israel.
Merely arguing against the terrible disproportionate horror that Israel has unleashed marks you as an enemy of the state.
Both of them are smeared as antisemites and both of them are denigrated so that their valid criticism of Israel’s deplorable war crimes
This is Amerika now.
This is why the Rights championing of Free Speech is such hypocrisy.
The Right have weaponised Free Speech (thanks to our middle class woke feminist non-binary activists) to shut down debate, not facilitate it. The Right are Free Speech hypocrites and we are seeing that manifest in America right now.
Let’s not forget that the World Court ruled Israel is probably committing technical genocide and their Prime Minister is currently wanted on war crimes FFS!
Silencing critics by arresting them with masked secret Police is just the start.
We are seeing this weaponisation of Free Speech in NZ!
Is this the ad that sparked Jim Grenon’s NZME takeover?
The Free Speech Union has confirmed it initially encouraged billionaire Jim Grenon’s investment in the NZME media group.
Grenon, a Canadian-born private equity investor, plans to clean out the board and set a new direction for the company, which owns the New Zealand Herald and about half the country’s commercial radio stations.
Jonathan Ayling, chief executive of the Free Speech Union, confirmed it was the campaign group that first suggested he become an investor.
…so the Alt-right astroturf Free Speech Union Glee club inspired Alt-Right Billionaire to take over Herald + ZB???
That’s like finding out Donald Trump is your Secret Santa.
The Free Speech Union are a Zionist apologist front group with direct links to the Atlas Network, the International Far Right Think Tank that is funded by big pollution money and radicalised culture war billionaires. It is led by a white South African who lectures New Zealanders on free speech, which would be the most hilarious part of the organisation if you didn’t add to them supporting violence for their free speech…
…and their weird social media feed that comes across like the frenetic reckons of a 19 year old Incel who hasn’t masturbated to Henti Porn for 48 hours because mums wifi account is almost out at the end of the month.
This is the group who raged against against 440 Christian Leaders using their free speech…
…so these alt-Right culture war extremists are the ones who helped an alt-Right Canadian Billionaire attempt to take over our largest media platforms???
These alt-Right Free Speech Fetishists whose goal is to protect their right to bigotry influenced an alt-Right Canadian Billionaire to want to seize the editorial controls of the largest media platforms in NZ.
The Right are Free Speech hypocrites and what Trump is doing proves that.
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…then they came for the students…
I’m pretty sure the free speech argument that if the left strangles free speech then the right will do right back just in a perfectly wonderfully better way was exactly the argument used on people like Weka the crazy left. I should know I was arguing that back in the day.
I think we have to meet the right wing where they are. Are they justified? Well yes. I mean if they want to throw vulnerable young women in jail time on some flimsy oh she hurt my feelings then we need to start doing the same.
We don’t choose martyrs god does. It’s a shame everyone had to bring women and children into it I agree very very very much. But this is where we are and softly kind things won’t appease the chaos. We need men willing to die in a fucken ditch for what they believe in.
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