Oppressed Peoples Online Word...The Voice Of The Voiceless
Hostage Rumeysa Ozturk Held In U.S. Government Facility...No Charges and Kidnapped
This is Rumeysa Ozturk, a Fulbright scholar from Turkey who is studying for her doctorate at Tufts University.
One of the neighbors caught it on his security camera and has shared truly chilling photos of a young woman being surrounded and bundled off into a car.
Like previous illegal ICE arrests of recent days there have been no charges filed. Her lawyer quickly filed with a judge to prevent her being moved out of state, which the judge approved, but as of today the ICE tracking tool shows her at a privately run prison in Louisiana, not in Massachusetts where she was taken. Her lawyers have not been allowed to speak to her.
Unlike other recent arrests, Ozturk was NOT heavily involved in protest actions on her campus or elsewhere.
I've been told that in some of the other egregious ICE actions of recent weeks that it's "not a free speech issue" because these people are "terrorists" and "supporters of Hamas" (NONE of which has been proven *or even charged* by the US government) AND YET... the best guess right now as to why this woman's visa was revoked and she was arrested is that she put her name on an op-ed in her school paper.
The op-ed had controversial statements like "We, as graduate students, affirm the equal dignity and humanity of all people."
So, to recap:
- A young, intelligent woman who is studying in the US legally
- Wrote an op-ed
- Got arrested by masked men and had her visa revoked
- Was removed from the state despite a court order saying she was not to be removed
- Has not been allowed to contact her lawyers
One of Rumeysa's friends, a professor at Northeastern, describes her as a "soft spoken, kind, and gentle soul." He said that not only was she not antisemitic, and not racist, he said that in the ten years he's known her she's not spoken badly to anyone at all.
It seems like in every way, Rumeysa Ozturk is the kind of person we should want in the United States. Kind, intelligent, law-abiding. Instead we've violated her rights and our own values, abducted her with masked secret police, incarcerated her without any charges, kept her from her lawyers, and disobeyed court orders about where she's to be kept.
I've heard some people saying lately that there's no reason to be concerned, because immigrants don't have the same rights as citizens, and honestly I find this more stomach-churning than some of the directly racist or xenophobic things I've seen people say. Why on earth are people defending the government that's harming people instead of the vulnerable people being harmed?
I will promise you this: when a government starts violating rights of the vulnerable, it doesn't stop with a single population of people.
This is another truly disturbing action by the US government and by ICE. If you're an American citizen, please make some noise about this to your reps, and check in on your friends who are vulnerable to this same kind of xenophobic totalitarian rights violations.
ETA: I've updated the photo here. The original photo I shared was apparently of another woman with the same name. Apologies to all and thanks for those who caught it in the comments.
Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص
In an effort to crack down on student activists who support Palestinians, the U.S. has revoked hundreds
of visas, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said yesterday at a press conference. He is delivering on President Trump’s promise to deport noncitizens whose activism he claims supports Hamas terrorism and is antisemitic. This week, over a thousand people outside of Boston took to the streets to call on the government to free Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk. Federal agents in plain clothes and face masks arrested her. The agents plan to deport her.
Ozturk published an op-ed last year in the student paper criticizing her school’s leaders for not condemning the war in Gazaas part of her pro-Palestinian activism, NPR’s Adrian Florido tells Up First. The Department of Homeland Security said that Ozturk “engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization.” Her lawyers say the allegations are baseless. Because Rubio revoked hundreds of these activists' visas, they became immediately deportable.
Full article: https://view.nl.npr.org/?qs=2980b83debfea5aa64cebbcc44fafe65ea9af3d...
Mar 28
Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص
Kofi Bilal Mahmud Eid AlFitr 1443 A.H.
Kofi Bilal Mahmud
Executive Director
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Mar 28
Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص
A federal judge in Massachusetts has temporarily barred the deportation of a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University, who voiced support for Palestinians in Israel’s war in Gaza and was detained by US immigration officials.
Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, was forcibly taken into custody by masked federal agents in broad daylight near her Massachusetts home on Tuesday. Immigration officials also revoked her visa.
Full article: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/29/tufts-university-student-c...
Mar 29