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Eyes wide open
Rumeysa Ozturk was walking alone last Tuesday night on her street in a suburb of Boston. Ozturk is a PhD student at Tufts University. She was on her way to join friends for dinner—breaking her daily fast during Ramadan. She didn’t make it.
According to CCTV footage, six men approached her on the street. They quickly gathered tightly around her. A man in a hooded sweatshirt grabbed Ozturk by the wrists while another snatched her phone. Ozturk screamed. She called for passersby to notify police.
“We are the police,” said one of her abductors wearing plainclothes, some with masks.
Ozturk was handcuffed, forced into an unmarked van, driven across the state, put on an aircraft and flown to a deportation station in Louisiana—1,600 miles away. It would be another 24 hours before her friends and lawyers were able to locate her.
She continues to be held, without charge.
Her crime, as best lawyers and journalists can discern, is that Ozturk wrote an Op-Ed in the school newspaper last year. In it, she urges Tufts’ administration to divest itself of stock in Israeli companies— not an uncommon call last summer.
“Credible accusations against Israel include accounts of deliberate starvation and indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians and plausible genocide,” the Op-Ed says. Inflammatory? Sure. Injudicious? Perhaps. Criminal? Categorically, no.
But according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Ozturk’s activities (her words) pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling US foreign policy interest.”
We need to catch our collective breath. The Trump administration is slashing through and charging over big important lines in these early days of his second term—lines that separate free societies from despotic rule. We watch from what we feel is a safe distance.
Such grotesque violations are happening so quickly and so frequently now that it is hard to keep up. Abuses of fundamental rights and norms are occurring with such speed and randomness that they tend to get lost in the fog of the unceasing nonsense oozing from Washington on an hourly basis. Our collective consciousness—not to mention the courts—struggle to respond. We stand agape.
Rumeysa Ozturk studies child and human development at Tufts University. Originally from Turkey, she won a Fulbright Scholarship that has enabled her to study in the US since 2018. The 30-year-old has a valid upto- date visa. (The purpose of the Fulbright Program is to “promote mutual understanding and cooperation between the people of the United States and other countries.”)
When Ozturk didn’t show up for dinner, her friends began a frantic search. Lawyers began calling local hospitals and police stations. They called the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) facility in Massachusetts to no avail. Massachusetts Department of Justice officials couldn’t find her.
Twenty-four hours passed. Finally, on Wednesday night, her lawyers were allowed to speak to Ozturk in the detention centre.
She has now been detained for a week, by order of Homeland Security. She awaits removal from the US On Friday, a judge ordered that Ozturk shall not be removed until further notice from the court until jurisdiction issues are sorted. Her plight, and her abduction, have garnered worldwide notice. But will it matter?
Donald Trump, spurred on by Steve Miller et al., is unhappy with the pace of deportations. It is all happening too slowly for them. We must therefore brace for the prospect that many more innocent folks are being rounded up, abducted from the street and snatched from their homes. Too many to count. Too many to notice. The speed of disgraces is rendering us numb.
When we are no longer moved by the spectacle of a western government disregarding the rule of law, rejecting due process, and abusing fundamental human decency because it is too slow, too inefficient, we are all in trouble. Eventually, it is we who are thrust into the unmarked van.
It is precisely at these intersections that we must stop and assess how quickly our neighbour is spiralling into an authoritarian state. We have a duty, I think, to bear witness to these shameful acts, in the frail hope that Rumeysa Ozturk’s story is remembered and shared. To tell our children. Pray they avoid our carelessness.
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