Last Tuesday it was Rumeysa Ozturk. Who will it be next?
These elements of the Constitution project a humane vision of democracy.
We lose this vision when we allow the federal administration to divide us into separate categories of citizens and noncitizens. Rumeysa Ozturk,
the Tufts graduate student who was swept off a Somerville street by masked plainclothes agents and then detained out of state, was a documented legal resident until her legal status was suddenly revoked without legal process. Now every noncitizen is at risk of having their legal status suddenly revoked. Once that is allowed, citizens will be next. Our silence is acceptance.
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John L. Hodge
Jamaica Plain
ICE arrest has all the trappings of the Stasi of East Germany
The secret police of East Germany, the Stasi, used spies, collaborators, kidnappings, violence, and fear to infiltrate every institution of society and daily life, including personal and family relationships.
In its editorial 'The chilling arrest of Rumeysa Ozturk, and the damage done,' the Globe worries about the loss of brain power in the country when international students are suddenly arrested and dragged off. I worry about the Stasi-like kidnap-style detentions and the defiance of due process of the Trump administration, which could result in any one of us finding ourselves handcuffed and leg chained in an airplane headed to a place of no return.
Karyn Rose
North Billerica
'I am a Zionist. And I condemn' the attack on Ozturk's rights
I am a Zionist: I believe in the right of the Jewish people to a homeland where we can self-determine, and that homeland is Israel. I'm also a student at Tufts University. And I strongly condemn what was essentially a kidnapping by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement of Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts doctoral student who was on her way to an Iftar dinner Tuesday evening when agents suddenly swarmed her and led her away in handcuffs.
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Ozturk was
activism took the form of campus protests and journalism, and she is nonviolent and here legally on a student visa.
Canary Mission does not act in my name. While I find Ozturk's views objectionable, I will forever defend her right to express them. What is happening to her is unconscionable and unconstitutional. This is a matter of basic human rights and the First Amendment. We must not allow people to be picked off the streets for having shared their views.
As a Jewish person, my values call me to speak up when I see others being mistreated. I implore my fellow Zionist Jews to stand against ICE and fascism everywhere. If we apply the lessons of the Holocaust only to our own group, we have learned nothing.
Zoey Howe
Medford
Not free to protest? In America?
Almost 55 years ago, I was a senior at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. In October 1969 a nationwide demonstration against the Vietnam War was scheduled, and there was to be a march in Salt Lake City, just up the road from campus. In spite of the BYU administration's warnings that any student who participated in the march could face expulsion, I joined a handful of fellow students in the protest. Our presence at the march (fewer than 10 of us out of a student body of about 25,000) and the 'risks' we were taking were deemed remarkable enough that we were ushered to the podium and cheered for our 'bravery.' As frightened and exposed as I felt that day, I never heard a word from either then-president Richard Nixon or BYU about any of it.
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That came to mind this week as I read about the arrest in Somerville and detention out of state of Rumeysa Ozturk. As I write this, she remains held in Louisiana, her visa revoked, her freedom taken, and her future very much in jeopardy — all for publicly disagreeing with the policies of the United States and its allies.
Some have asked whether Donald Trump is worse than Nixon. Whatever the answer, what is clear is that the Republican Party that helped to dethrone Nixon in 1974 no longer exists. It has been replaced by a gang of spineless acolytes willing to sit by and watch people like Ozturk be grabbed from a street in America and taken away in an unmarked SUV for simply exercising her right of free speech.
Michael Knosp
Melrose
Trump keeps seeing what he can get away with
Masked plainclothes agents handcuff and whisk a person off the street into an unmarked vehicle and transport her to a distant detention facility. It appears that they did not tell her why they were apprehending her. How is this not the action of a Gestapo? I fear that these incidents are the administration testing the waters to see what it can get away with.
What would the agents have done if the person ran?
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Brian Huckins
Northborough
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