Rumeysa Ozturk’s lawyer believes she is being targeted over a school paper editorial she co-authored
snips from the article:
U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin […] did not specify what specific activities were engaged in by Ozturk, a Fulbright Scholar and student in Tufts’ doctoral program for Child Study and Human Development. Ozturk had been in the country on an F-1 visa to study.
[…]
Ozturk co-authored an opinion piece a year ago in the school’s student paper, the Tufts Daily, that criticized the school’s response to calls by students to divest from companies with ties to Israel and to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide.”
“Based on patterns we are seeing across the country, her exercising her free speech rights appears to have played a role in her detention,” said Mahsa Khanbabai, Ozturk’s lawyer. Khanbabai called the claims against Ozturk “baseless” and said people should be “horrified at the way DHS spirited away Rumeysa in broad daylight.”
Was there more than one in Somerville? If not, that’s the protest they reference in the article. Maybe you’ll see yourself or a neighbour in the pic.
Thank you for showing up for Rumeysa and your community. As you say, it’s helpful, contradicting the constantly polarized image of society accelerationists force feed us.
To quote one of your better Yankee politicians:
“It’s important to know that a lot of productive activity is happening in person and offline, too. Not all of it can be broadcast online, but we’ve had hundreds of people showing up to our trainings, mobilizations, and more. Keep going. Tyranny is eroded by a sea of small acts. Everything matters.” - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, sometime last month
I meant more that I know there were other protests outside of the Boston area, too, mainly driven by university students with concerns about similar happening in their communities.
I barely know my neighbors, so I don’t think I’d recognize one if I saw them, and a lot of folks including myself were masked up, so I don’t think anyone would recognize me in a photo either.
Also just need to say that AOC quote is good, but also that “Yankee” is a dirty word here around Boston, haha.