On the evening of Tuesday, March 25, Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and PhD student at Tufts University, was arrested without warrant outside her off-campus apartment by federal agents. Rumeysa is a Fulbright Scholar and legal resident. She was on her way to an iftar meal with friends when she was surrounded by masked, plainclothes officers and abducted to a detention center in Louisiana.

Now, Rumeysa has been abducted by the Trump administration after co-authoring an op-ed advocating to “hold Israel accountable for clear violations of international law [...] oppressing the Palestinian people and denying their right to self-determination.” Students like her have been labeled a “national security risk” for their dissenting political speech.

On March 26, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) Jeremy Burton released a statement that began by insinuating that Rumeysa’s actions were antisemitic, only secondarily calling for the respect of civil liberties, without naming any specifics. The JCRC claims to be “the voice of the organized Jewish community in Greater Boston...on behalf of their priorities and values in the broader civic space.” We, signed below, feel it has failed to live up to this claim, that it has let us down.

This is a moment of civic crisis in our country. As Jews, we are all too familiar with what it means when people are arrested with no charges, no warrant, and no due process. What began with the criminalization of undocumented communities is rapidly transitioning to the persecution of immigrants with visas, green cards, and permanent status. We are headed towards a state where anyone who expresses dissent, regardless of citizenship or immigration status, can be indefinitely detained under fuzzy, false allegations of being a threat to national security.

We are a diverse coalition of Boston Jews who disagree on many things, political and otherwise, but we all agree that our community institutions must forcefully condemn the sudden arrest and abduction of people for their political speech. We are united by an understanding that our safety is directly tied to the safety of other targeted communities. Now is not the moment for vague, waffling, or halfhearted statements. It is the time to fight fiercely to defend our most fundamental civil liberties.

We call on the JCRC to:

• Release a statement demanding the immediate release of Rumeysa Ozturk
• Urge its member organizations to work to secure Rumeysa’s safe return and to resist similar actions by the Trump administration

Add your name to demand action from the JCRC and the release of Rumeysa Ozturk right now.