Rumeysa Ozturk’s Abduction Threatens More Than Free Speech
The Trump administration is targeting “the best and the brightest” immigrants with SS tactics in broad daylight. Will we let them get away with it?
A little over 50 protesters, with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles and community members march to denounce the Trump administration's recent attacks on free speech and immigrant rights including the arrest of Rümeysa Öztürk in downtown Los Angeles on April 1, 2025.
(Photo: Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Mary Dingee Fillmore
Apr 06, 2025
Apr 06, 2025
Common Dreams
Almost no one who knew her can find a bad word to say about Rumeysa Ozturk, the doctoral candidate who was abducted by masked ICE agents on March 25. Tufts University President Sunil Kumar has come to her defense, as well as religious leaders such as Rabbi Dan Slipakoff, and numerous alumni. Her closest defender is her colleague and advisor Reyyan Bilge, who regards Ms. Ozturk’s abduction as “a betrayal of American values.” So do I—and for me, it’s personal. Not because I’m Turkish or an academic, but because I’m an American writer whose main subject is the anti-Nazi resistance in the Netherlands. And I live in Vermont, which shouldn’t have had anything to do with it.
The video of Ms. Ozturk’s abduction is the worst nightmare we might have about what could happen to someone we love, or to us. She is walking along the street in broad daylight, on her way to break the Ramadan fast at an interfaith center. It all happens so fast—first a few masked officers; she screams; then she is surrounded by both women and men who slip out of unmarked cars. They forcibly take her phone, and handcuff her behind her back to ensure that this dangerous scholar of child study and human development cannot harm them. A Fulbright scholar invited to the United States because of her exceptional abilities, Rumeysa Ozturk’s high, terrified voice tells us that she wasn’t watching for these thugs to come after her, on the clean streets near her university.
I’ve seen all this happen in historic photo after photo, but having it come to life in Medford, Massachusetts slips us in time from one era to another, from one place to another. It takes me back to an idyllic stay in Amsterdam in 2001, when I found a 1941 photograph showing Jewish neighbors being rounded up on my doorstep. That changed my relationship to the city forever, and launched 13 years of research and writing about how good people colluded with the Nazis by doing nothing, and how a courageous handful resisted.
The authoritarian playbook will target writers and thinkers first.
When one of the five masked officers who surrounded Rumeysa Ozturk said, “We’re police,” was that supposed to reassure her? Does any common criminal have the capacity to kidnap someone across state lines and hold her for days in prison? Would that not be a federal crime if the federal government were not committing it? What was it that made her say, “OK, OK?” Was she making the transition from fearing that she would be robbed or raped to realizing that these people, even if masked, might actually be legitimate? Are they?
Rumeysa Ozturk is being persecuted because she is a writer who exercised her right of free speech. The government which transported her from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, then to Vermont, then to Louisiana, has brought no specific evidence that she was supporting Hamas. Her only “crime” is coauthoring an op-ed urging her university to acknowledge the genocide of more than 50,000 Palestinians, and to divest from related investment. The piece does not mention Hamas. While these positions may be offensive to the Trump administration, they are examples of the free speech people come to this country to secure—and which our ancestors fought to establish. PEN USA has taken a stand along with free speech organizations, but even more individual writers and others should demand that Ms. Ozturk be released.
Within hours, thousands gathered to protest what happened right there, on their streets. In the background of the security video, someone seems to be asking, “Why are you wearing masks?” Now we know. There are so many steps where Ms. Ozturk was denied equal protection under the law: when her visa was revoked without her knowledge, when she was accosted by masked ICE agents, when she was abducted, and now that she is being held without her consent. No one has put forward evidence that Ms. Ozturk ever spoke at a rally or even attended one, although she would have been within her rights to do so. She simply wrote what she believed.
Because of a court filing, we know that her lawyer wasn’t quite fast enough to get a judicial order to prevent Ms. Ozturk from being moved out of Massachusetts until she was already gone—or so the government claims. They whisked her across multiple state lines almost immediately, no doubt with this very thing in mind. It’s less than 40 miles to the New Hampshire border, then about an hour and a half to Lebanon, where they held her temporarily. But within a few hours, she was 26 miles north of my city of Burlington, Vermont, in the ICE holding tank in St. Albans, Vermont. The next morning, they took her to the airport which is only two miles from my home, and transported her to Louisiana. The highway they took her on—to St. Albans and then back to the Burlington airport—is so close that I can walk there in 15 minutes. In summer, I can hear the cars passing on it.
Until the last few weeks, my biggest fear has been for people like Vermont’s dairy workers who don’t have the class privilege that will motivate others to take up their cause with resources and alacrity. People who don’t have a lawyer they can call. I still fear for them, but now I realize that the authoritarian playbook will target writers and thinkers first. They don’t even have to be brown to be persecuted. We see it across the country now: Russians, French, Turkish, Palestinian.
For years, I’ve been speaking about collusion and collaboration with the Nazis. Now I feel the weight of those dilemmas intimately and personally. Is it OK for me to enjoy a beautiful meal or the coming of spring? I must, if only for my own sanity. But I must also think every day of Rumeysa Ozturk and what I can do about and for her. Otherwise, I might as well be the woman who obeyed the Nazis and drew the curtains of my Amsterdam apartment as the Jews were being rounded up on her doorstep.
Almost no one who knew her can find a bad word to say about Rumeysa Ozturk, the doctoral candidate who was abducted by masked ICE agents on March 25. Tufts University President Sunil Kumar has come to her defense, as well as religious leaders such as Rabbi Dan Slipakoff, and numerous alumni. Her closest defender is her colleague and advisor Reyyan Bilge, who regards Ms. Ozturk’s abduction as “a betrayal of American values.” So do I—and for me, it’s personal. Not because I’m Turkish or an academic, but because I’m an American writer whose main subject is the anti-Nazi resistance in the Netherlands. And I live in Vermont, which shouldn’t have had anything to do with it.
The video of Ms. Ozturk’s abduction is the worst nightmare we might have about what could happen to someone we love, or to us. She is walking along the street in broad daylight, on her way to break the Ramadan fast at an interfaith center. It all happens so fast—first a few masked officers; she screams; then she is surrounded by both women and men who slip out of unmarked cars. They forcibly take her phone, and handcuff her behind her back to ensure that this dangerous scholar of child study and human development cannot harm them. A Fulbright scholar invited to the United States because of her exceptional abilities, Rumeysa Ozturk’s high, terrified voice tells us that she wasn’t watching for these thugs to come after her, on the clean streets near her university.
I’ve seen all this happen in historic photo after photo, but having it come to life in Medford, Massachusetts slips us in time from one era to another, from one place to another. It takes me back to an idyllic stay in Amsterdam in 2001, when I found a 1941 photograph showing Jewish neighbors being rounded up on my doorstep. That changed my relationship to the city forever, and launched 13 years of research and writing about how good people colluded with the Nazis by doing nothing, and how a courageous handful resisted.
The authoritarian playbook will target writers and thinkers first.
When one of the five masked officers who surrounded Rumeysa Ozturk said, “We’re police,” was that supposed to reassure her? Does any common criminal have the capacity to kidnap someone across state lines and hold her for days in prison? Would that not be a federal crime if the federal government were not committing it? What was it that made her say, “OK, OK?” Was she making the transition from fearing that she would be robbed or raped to realizing that these people, even if masked, might actually be legitimate? Are they?
Rumeysa Ozturk is being persecuted because she is a writer who exercised her right of free speech. The government which transported her from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, then to Vermont, then to Louisiana, has brought no specific evidence that she was supporting Hamas. Her only “crime” is coauthoring an op-ed urging her university to acknowledge the genocide of more than 50,000 Palestinians, and to divest from related investment. The piece does not mention Hamas. While these positions may be offensive to the Trump administration, they are examples of the free speech people come to this country to secure—and which our ancestors fought to establish. PEN USA has taken a stand along with free speech organizations, but even more individual writers and others should demand that Ms. Ozturk be released.
Within hours, thousands gathered to protest what happened right there, on their streets. In the background of the security video, someone seems to be asking, “Why are you wearing masks?” Now we know. There are so many steps where Ms. Ozturk was denied equal protection under the law: when her visa was revoked without her knowledge, when she was accosted by masked ICE agents, when she was abducted, and now that she is being held without her consent. No one has put forward evidence that Ms. Ozturk ever spoke at a rally or even attended one, although she would have been within her rights to do so. She simply wrote what she believed.
Because of a court filing, we know that her lawyer wasn’t quite fast enough to get a judicial order to prevent Ms. Ozturk from being moved out of Massachusetts until she was already gone—or so the government claims. They whisked her across multiple state lines almost immediately, no doubt with this very thing in mind. It’s less than 40 miles to the New Hampshire border, then about an hour and a half to Lebanon, where they held her temporarily. But within a few hours, she was 26 miles north of my city of Burlington, Vermont, in the ICE holding tank in St. Albans, Vermont. The next morning, they took her to the airport which is only two miles from my home, and transported her to Louisiana. The highway they took her on—to St. Albans and then back to the Burlington airport—is so close that I can walk there in 15 minutes. In summer, I can hear the cars passing on it.
Until the last few weeks, my biggest fear has been for people like Vermont’s dairy workers who don’t have the class privilege that will motivate others to take up their cause with resources and alacrity. People who don’t have a lawyer they can call. I still fear for them, but now I realize that the authoritarian playbook will target writers and thinkers first. They don’t even have to be brown to be persecuted. We see it across the country now: Russians, French, Turkish, Palestinian.
For years, I’ve been speaking about collusion and collaboration with the Nazis. Now I feel the weight of those dilemmas intimately and personally. Is it OK for me to enjoy a beautiful meal or the coming of spring? I must, if only for my own sanity. But I must also think every day of Rumeysa Ozturk and what I can do about and for her. Otherwise, I might as well be the woman who obeyed the Nazis and drew the curtains of my Amsterdam apartment as the Jews were being rounded up on her doorstep.
Jewish Students Chain Themselves to Columbia Fence to Protest Khalil Detention
"As Jewish students, we grew up learning about the rise of fascism, learning about how important it is to stand up when you see injustice in the world," said one protester.
Jewish students chain themselves to the gates of Columbia University, demanding accountability from the university's trustees following the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil on April 2, 2025 in New York City.
(Photo: Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Julia Conley
Apr 02, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
Jewish Columbia University students had chained themselves to a fence on campus for 45 minutes on Wednesday, in protest of the school's cooperation with immigration agents to arrest a leader of last year's pro-Palestinian encampment, when New York City Police officers arrived to break up the nonviolent action.
One student identified as Shea, who was wearing a kippah with a watermelon design and a keffiyeh—symbols of Palestinian solidarity—told independent journalist Meghnad Bose that university trustees are "directly implicated" in Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) targeting of Mahmoud Khalil, a former student who helped lead negotiations demanding Columbia's divestment from Israel last year.
Shea said trustees handed over the names of Khalil and other pro-Palestinian students at Columbia to the government.
"We are here in protest of that to demand that the university tell us which trustees, which members of the university administration, are responsible for this so we can demand immediate consequences for them and hold them accountable for what they've done to our peer," said the undergraduate student.
Shea added that Jewish students were leading the protest because "the attacks on our international students, on students of color, have been so fierce, so dangerous, so disproportionate that we are the only students who can be here right now taking this risk."
Plainclothes ICE agents abducted Khalil last month as he was returning home to his apartment in a Columbia-owned building with his pregnant wife. The agents refused to identify themselves and ultimately Khalil was sent to an ICE detention facility in Louisiana. Khalil is an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent and had a green card, which has reportedly been revoked by the Trump administration, while his wife—who is pregnant with their first child—is a U.S. citizen.
A federal court in New Jersey ruled Tuesday that the challenge to ICE's unlawful detention of Khalil should continue in the state. His wife responded that "this is an important step towards securing Mahmoud's freedom, but there is still a lot more to be done. As the countdown to our son's birth begins and I inch closer and closer to my due date, I will continue to strongly advocate for Mahmoud’s freedom and for his safe return home so he can be by my side to welcome our first child."
Khalil was detained days after the Trump administration announced it was canceling $400 million in grants and contracts for Columbia in retaliation for what it claimed was a failure to address antisemitism on campus. The Trump administration has conflated expressions of support for Palestinian rights on college campuses with attacks on Jewish students, as did the Biden administration before it.
Columbia oversaw an aggressive response to the protests last year, allowing NYPD officers to drag students out of a building they occupied and unofficially renamed Hind's Hall after Hind Rajab, a six-year-old girl who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.
An analysis of last year's pro-Palestinian campus protests, many of which were led by Jewish students, found that 97% of them were nonviolent.
A Barnard College student identified as Tali said Wednesday that "as Jewish students, we grew up learning about the rise of fascism, learning about how important it is to stand up when you see injustice in the world."
Campus security quickly cordoned off the area where students had chained themselves to the fence. After the NYPD arrived, security officers used bolt cutters to remove the protesters from the fence.
Bose reported that "in [a] sudden escalation, Columbia campus security aggressively [engaged] student protesters," and tried to take away a banner reading, "Free Mahmoud Khalil."
"Love and solidarity to these courageous Jewish students who have chained themselves to the gates of Columbia in protest of the university turning over their friend Mahmoud Khalil to a fascist administration," said Simone Zimmerman, co-founder of the Jewish-led group IfNotNow.
The students, said Zimmerman, "are taking risks today that they know most of their peers cannot."
"As Jewish students, we grew up learning about the rise of fascism, learning about how important it is to stand up when you see injustice in the world," said one protester.
Jewish students chain themselves to the gates of Columbia University, demanding accountability from the university's trustees following the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil on April 2, 2025 in New York City.
(Photo: Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Julia Conley
Apr 02, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
Jewish Columbia University students had chained themselves to a fence on campus for 45 minutes on Wednesday, in protest of the school's cooperation with immigration agents to arrest a leader of last year's pro-Palestinian encampment, when New York City Police officers arrived to break up the nonviolent action.
One student identified as Shea, who was wearing a kippah with a watermelon design and a keffiyeh—symbols of Palestinian solidarity—told independent journalist Meghnad Bose that university trustees are "directly implicated" in Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) targeting of Mahmoud Khalil, a former student who helped lead negotiations demanding Columbia's divestment from Israel last year.
Shea said trustees handed over the names of Khalil and other pro-Palestinian students at Columbia to the government.
"We are here in protest of that to demand that the university tell us which trustees, which members of the university administration, are responsible for this so we can demand immediate consequences for them and hold them accountable for what they've done to our peer," said the undergraduate student.
Shea added that Jewish students were leading the protest because "the attacks on our international students, on students of color, have been so fierce, so dangerous, so disproportionate that we are the only students who can be here right now taking this risk."
Plainclothes ICE agents abducted Khalil last month as he was returning home to his apartment in a Columbia-owned building with his pregnant wife. The agents refused to identify themselves and ultimately Khalil was sent to an ICE detention facility in Louisiana. Khalil is an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent and had a green card, which has reportedly been revoked by the Trump administration, while his wife—who is pregnant with their first child—is a U.S. citizen.
A federal court in New Jersey ruled Tuesday that the challenge to ICE's unlawful detention of Khalil should continue in the state. His wife responded that "this is an important step towards securing Mahmoud's freedom, but there is still a lot more to be done. As the countdown to our son's birth begins and I inch closer and closer to my due date, I will continue to strongly advocate for Mahmoud’s freedom and for his safe return home so he can be by my side to welcome our first child."
Khalil was detained days after the Trump administration announced it was canceling $400 million in grants and contracts for Columbia in retaliation for what it claimed was a failure to address antisemitism on campus. The Trump administration has conflated expressions of support for Palestinian rights on college campuses with attacks on Jewish students, as did the Biden administration before it.
Columbia oversaw an aggressive response to the protests last year, allowing NYPD officers to drag students out of a building they occupied and unofficially renamed Hind's Hall after Hind Rajab, a six-year-old girl who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.
An analysis of last year's pro-Palestinian campus protests, many of which were led by Jewish students, found that 97% of them were nonviolent.
A Barnard College student identified as Tali said Wednesday that "as Jewish students, we grew up learning about the rise of fascism, learning about how important it is to stand up when you see injustice in the world."
Campus security quickly cordoned off the area where students had chained themselves to the fence. After the NYPD arrived, security officers used bolt cutters to remove the protesters from the fence.
Bose reported that "in [a] sudden escalation, Columbia campus security aggressively [engaged] student protesters," and tried to take away a banner reading, "Free Mahmoud Khalil."
"Love and solidarity to these courageous Jewish students who have chained themselves to the gates of Columbia in protest of the university turning over their friend Mahmoud Khalil to a fascist administration," said Simone Zimmerman, co-founder of the Jewish-led group IfNotNow.
The students, said Zimmerman, "are taking risks today that they know most of their peers cannot."
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