One of the men goes for her phone. The other grabs at her hands. Ozturk screams. Shock and fear ripple through her voice. Two masked women join them, tugging at her backpack, peeling the straps from her shoulders. “I’m going somewhere, I need to call someone,” she pleads. “We’re the police. Relax,” one of the men says in response.
They surround her. Then, one by one, they pull their neck gaiters up to cover their faces. “You don’t look like police,” a voice off screen says. “Why are you hiding your faces?” The questions continue, but the figures don’t respond. Instead, they cuff Ozturk, cross the street, and put her in an unmarked SUV. She is gone.
I do have to wonder, in a country with the first and second amendment, why one applies to people physically in the USA and the other does not. Seems like a lawyer would have to talk bullshit for hours to justify that,
This is horrifying. This person broke no laws. If Trump is doing this to valid green card holders for exercising their first amendment rights, then we are one degree of separation from Trump doing this to U.S. citizens who criticize him.
It’s only going to continue getting worse. Make an exit plan if you haven’t already.
Wtf I thought it was news overblown at first I can’t fucking believe the US government is doing this in middle of the day, can’t they Atleast try to disguise it as criminal activity?
We’ve become so complacent. A unified community would have intervened, violently if necessary. I would love nothing more than to see a crowd of folks popping out of houses and cars and surrounding these terrorists at gunpoint.
Ozturk’s lawyer later said she hadn’t been able to contact her and had no idea of her whereabouts.
America, the land of the free… Right?
Who ever told you that is your enemy.
The two following lines are very relevant too
Now something must be done About vengeance, a badge, and a gun
Link to the song, for those who don’t know the reference.
Thanks for linking that
Remember when conservatives were all like fear mongering that Obama was going to do this to them? It was always projection.
Free to the power of the people in uniform!
Or people not in uniform seemingly. Easiest time ever to actually kidnap people: Get your thugs together, get a van, kidnap your target person from the street, while yelling “shut up, we are the police”. Outcome is essentially the same
If you see this start filming and get them to shout their name. This is not how an arrest is done in a normal country. This is how you disappear people and how militias can fake being police to abduct and kill people.
If you see this, pull a fuckin gun on the kidnappers.
That is a sure way to end up dead.
you could be dead either way. why not take some with you?
Letting it happen is a sure way to end up in fascism. It’s kosher legally to defend someone in immediate physical danger.
Tell me, how do you imagine a PhD student getting in a firefight with five people and not ending up dead?
Also tell me: do you honestly believe that if such thing happened, the psycho-right wouldn’t spin this as “violent Brown attacks police who bravely take her down”?
Americans need to understand that during a resistance there will be casualties.
If you fail to resist a fascist police state you’re already dead.
I’m not so sure the alternative of being disappeared into an El Salvedor prison is much better. Besides, it’s time for the Fascists to feel the pain. I’m not a firearm carrying sort myself but I do carry a can of pepper gel with me. A gift for anyone who is trying to molest me.
There is no guarantee this is an arrest.
These people are not showing that they are law enforcement. For all we know we just watched someone get kidnapped by sex traffickers.
Bystanders shouldn’t stand by idle, if someone is getting kidnapped right in front of you, and you’re able bodied, you should do something about it, violently. Even if it means grabbing the closest heavy thing and throwing it at them. Yell, make a scene, yell out “kidnappers help me!” …etc
NEVER LET YOURSELF OR SOMEONE ELSE BE TAKEN TO A SECONDARY LOCATION. EVER.
Anything your captors are willing to do in public is only a fraction of what they would be willing to do in private.
You don’t necessarily have to put yourself in harms way, but you can still show some level of resistance to kidnappers, rapists, and the rest. No one should just let those things happen in front of them, and simply pull their phone out to film.
That’s some psycho pass level shit.
Yup.
If plain-clothed thugs try to push me into an unmarked van I have to assume I need to start fighting for my life. I don’t give a fuck who they say they are. If you are who you are, wear a uniform, act professional, and show me identification.
Everyone needs to purchase a firearm and start training.
Former fireman salesman here:
Don’t just go buy a gun on a whim. Gun ownership is a responsibility with potentially deadly consequences if not taken seriously, and there are moral, legal, ethical, and practical considerations involved.
If anyone has questions about firearms, firearm safety, etc, feel free to reach out. I don’t support violent demonstrations or lawlessness, but anyone wanting to know about the tools for legal self-defense, hunting, and shooting sports is welcome to ask me questions.
There are also other ways you can resist a Fascist. I have a can of pepper gel I keep on me at all times. Anyone who tries to abduct me and put me in the back of a van, secret police or just random crook, is getting that sprayed in their eyes and mouth. Apply liberally to the face of the leopard trying to eat your face then run.
I advise everyone who is here on a Student Visa or similar circumstance to start carrying, whether it be mace or a firearm. But keep in mind the firearm salesman notes above. They are good ones.
👊🇺🇸🔥
Type of shit they tell you to expect in China, except its the USA
Police have badges for a reason, if someone with a mask on says theyre police nobody should be surprised when they get shot in the face
This is the very definition of terrorism:
“Terrorism is the calculated use of violence to create fear and achieve political goals, often targeting civilians…”I expected it to be more violent based on the title. They actually, went up and explained to her what was happening. At the same time, it did seem kind of odd the way it was done, like they weren’t professionals at this.
They didn’t have badges out at first and they didn’t show any ID. This is absolutely a situation you could legally draw a gun and start shooting at people. Police should be in uniform and showing ID. This is how militias in “bad” countries abduct and kill people. There’s no way to tell them from the police. This is not normal in a western democracy.
I agree, it doesn’t seem to have been done the way it should have been.
Its just that based on the title I was expecting a van to drive up, open the door, shove her in, and drive off.
I agree, it doesn’t seem to have been done the way it should have been.
It shouldn’t have been done, period
I wasn’t commenting on whether it should have or not, just on the way it was executed.
I get that, but it’s like you are commenting on how a rapist was not efficient in his raping… not sure there is any value in “how” something that should not have taken place, actually took place
As i said before, I don’t know if it should have taken place or not, I don’t know enough of the background story.
That’s kind of a hollywood thing. It can certainly happen but an unsecured person in a van is a nightmare to deal with.
“Get in the van, there’s candy” is also an explanation. But you probably shouldn’t believe it when a masked individual is saying it and the van is unmarked.
Well, it does look like he shows her his badge as he’s walking up to her. The mask thing is weird though.
Well, it does look like he shows her his badge as he’s walking up to her.
…not at all…? He has his hands in his pockets until he stops walking in front of her, then he takes out his open hand to tell her to stop, then he takes out the other to stop her from walking away. When do you think he showed her a badge?
OK, I guess when I watched the video earlier today it was brighter and I couldn’t see it as well. It looked like a badge was maybe in his hand as he walked towards her, but I can see now that it wasn’t. It does look like the others pull there badges out though, and have them hanging from their necks as they approach.
Kidnapping comes with the threat of violence if you resist. She committed no crime so this is kidnapping.
People get arrested all the time who haven’t committed a crime (which does not mean you have been found guilty yet). It’s not considered kidnapping. And it does look like he shows his badge before going for her phone. And no, I don’t think this was gone about correctly.
I don’t know the back story so I’m not commenting on if she should have been taken in or not.
People who are arrested are either charged with a crime or are presenting an immediate and reasonable threat. None of these are the case here. This was absolutely a violation of her due process. Thats without even getting to the issue of her visa revocation.
For the record, and I know I’m not the first to say it, this woman committed NO crime. She didn’t overstay a visa, she didn’t protest illegally. She wrote something the administration didn’t like.
For that, she was arrested by 8 masked officers in the middle of the street, in broad daylight. She was thrown in the back on an unmarked SUV. She’s received no legal representation. No trial. Not even charges, because again, she committed no crime.
Americans, you realize you’re watching the death of your rights and the rule of law, right? You have no illusions about the fact that you are defenseless? There is no longer any guardrail between you and an El Salvadoran prison camp. In something that reminds me very much of Stalin, an accusation is now a conviction.
For the record, and I know I’m not the first to say it, this woman committed NO crime.
Ozturk
The state rests it’s case.
What the fuck do we do? I’m in a hyperliberal city in one of the few blue states left. We are relatively safe for now. I make a comfortable amount of money that I use to support my wife and friends who sometimes may not have necessities. I cannot risk my job by taking every day off to protest. Protests also seem meaningless to go to for me in my city because they’re happening in a safer city.
I am donating to the ACLU every month, but idk what else we can be doing. What can we be doing?
Time for Canada to annex Pacific Coast states(at least) then we can live in a functioning democracy again.
Organize armed protests. Connect in your neighborhood, so if this shit goes down, and it will start going down in your neighborhood soon enough, people can show up, free the victim and bog down the attackers.
Defenseless is a good word, it seems like we’re all just waiting for a savior to show up and rescue us. It doesn’t help that a large amount of Americans see protest as pointless right now. What it feels like is the bystander effect on a national level.
The worst part is how many people either support or just brush it off.
There have been weekly protests of this shit across the country since the asshole was elected. It’s not helping. And even the “opposition party” is capitulating to the bullshit. What else are we supposed to do?
It doesn’t help that a large amount of Americans see protest as pointless right now.
It’s the wheel of life:
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Protests help something, but they are hard, violent, inconvenient, people die, money is lost, but they achieve goals and generally people know that protests and breaking everything around is necessary. Cutting infrastructure, beating officials (including police) to pulp, closing roads. Stopping factories (ok, that’s not a problem in the first world), stopping trucks and trains, stopping mail. Causing blackouts.
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To avoid that, people talk. They form mechanisms to avoid real protests, but these mechanisms are dependent on real protests. Like gold standard - it’s supported by circulation, so if you can’t fall back to gold, you can’t really call it gold standard. It’s the same with protests. Real democracy is dependent on falling back to protests and just killing a few of the government jerks who think they are some kind of thief aristocracy.
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People have long, really long period of questions being resolved by talking. And if it comes to protests, these are soft protests and they - mistake - become too subject for discussion, like let’s not go to those streets, let’s not hurt businesses, let’s follow these rules and obey police.
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People get used to that.
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The protest gold standard is in fact abolished, you’ve been softly and slowly made a serf, congratulations.
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Try protesting now, you’ll get absolutely abused for doing pretty normal things.
OK, I’m from Russia, here people looked at tanks on the streets of Moscow in a few crises and decided they are smart and wise to follow rules made by thieves and murderers.
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After all that trashing of Russians and why they do not fight against their government, the world gets to see that Americans are basically the same: so many fall for the dumbest possible propaganda and the rest is either afraid or apathetic.
Humans are the same everywhere. Political structures and cultures are not, but humans have evolved for much longer.
Which is why when you (if you do) think about the EU being some land of honey, it would be wise to also think “what am I missing if I don’t see similar problems there”.
I agree. We had over 20% far right votes here in Germany recently. Russian propaganda is going strong, too. Somehow I hope that watching the rapid disassembly of the US under Trump should open the eyes of some of them, but I am grasping at straws here.
Americans see protest as pointless right now.
Americans have seen a generation of peaceful protests that were crushed and villified. Anti-WTO, Anti-Iraq War, Occupy Wall Street, George Floyd, etc; all failed to achieve any of their stated goals.
And now that the fascists have taken control, peaceful protest is even less effective. For peaceful protest to succeed your opponent must have empathy, and fascists have none.
The last protest movement that accomplished something substantial was the civil rights movement. It was not peaceful, it was militant. I think we need a modern Black Panther Party.
Exactly, you need armed protest.
For peaceful protests to succeed they must attract more people to the cause and gather momentum. Protests now would be useful for bringing people together and emboldening people to resist what’s going on. They are a step in building a movement. To say “protests alone don’t change things” misses this point.
Remember “Better be Russian than a democrat” guys? Well, now they’re Russian!
You have no illusions about the fact that you are defenseless?
We have guns. Lots of guns.
Everyone needs to arm themselves and train.
Your guns don’t compare to the guns the government use. Nor do you have the numbers to resist even if equally armed. If the 1/3 of voters that didn’t vote, actually voted for for Harris, you wouldn’t be in this mess but there you are.
What do you mean about numbers? The state and it’s guards are always massively outnumbered by the people, it’s just a question of organization.
But how many people are willing to risk their life without immediate danger to themselves (yet)?
and if we had a time machine we could fix all this. STFU. GUNS.
Yeah well, ask the Afghans or Vietnamese. Turns out you don’t need to have the same fire power to drag your opponent through the mud.
The Vietnamese had some of the greatest strategic minds in their history leading the fight against the Americans.
So far, it doesn’t seem like there’s a single leader for a resistance in the U.S., and certainly none as skilled in tactics.
Where do you expect the resistance leaders to come from?
From the state resistance leadership school, with the public resistance leadership grant? If you dont form a resistance you cannot create resistance leaders
I suspect your government would love it if you started shooting. They’d declare martial law. Goodbye elections, hello police state.
They will do this either way.
There is no bargaining with these people. They will not not escalate from their side. By not escalating from your side you only encourage their escalation as they face no repercussions.
That’s true actually - they are escalating pretty hard already.
As a long-term peacenik though, I hate the thought of gun battles on the streets. I wish you all the very best. I first visited the US in 1976 and have toured around a lot since then. My one single bad experience was Homeland Security when transiting through LAX. We’re tourists not terrorists, jeez cool your jets! I can’t imagine how bad ICE is.
She wrote something the administration didn’t like.
What was written?
She expressed anti-Palestinian genocide sentiments.
In New America that gets you disappeared by masked thugs.
A couple of op-eds for a Student newspaper criticizing Israel? I thought I saw the pieces linked earlier but I don’t see them now. The article linked on this post says it supported a student divestment program and referenced the International Criminal Court calling attacks on Gaza a genocide.
Hardly spicy compared to your average social media post.
Also, this is just the rehearsal until they go for political opponents with American citizenship.
Yes.
America has always been more or less of a fascist state, and this is not new activity, although it is worse and more brazen in a lot of ways. Civil Rights for ethnic minorities has always been pretty iffy.
30% of the country loves this shit, and another large fraction doesn’t even know it’s going on. A lot of us are working to try to change things. The media is not covering all of the demonstrations, but we definitely need more people to get angry.
We .need to arm ourselves and shoot fuckers like this. If you see fuckets like this trying to take someone intervene and shoot to kill. We need rise up. Because yes we are next.
Just start by protesting, protecting, and block them from doing this shit when possible. If you go directly full terrorist mode, it means they won…
They already won, are you from another species? Are you watching this?
full terrorist mode
You mean… like these fuckers?
They won a (ok a bit more) battle, not the war! Move your ass, rebuild your democracy and add safeguards so you never let such hateful, retarded people in this position again.
Black Panthers open carried.
She also had her visa revoked so can no longer legally stay in the USA to complete her studies, or enter again. This was because she wrote an op-ed disapproving of Israel’s genocide.
This comment section is foolish.
This has been going on since before I was born, I’m 31.
Protests are CONSTANTLY happening they haven’t ended since the BLM protests.
This is why we should end all federal policing. It’s not in the constitution. You were never meant to interact with your federal government. The federal government was for regulating the states, interstate commerce, and common defense.
Umm, fuck no.
I lived in the south, the FBI were basically the only reason I didn’t have to worry about some inbred redneck deputy getting hammered and having fun with a baseball bat for kicks.
We needed the feds to protect our rights, because according to the south, we had none.
But this shit is proof there’s another side of the coin.
i’m still holding out for some federal agency or the joint chiefs to step in and stop this administration. that would be a hell of a lot easier than depending on the people to do it.
Military officer corp is easily the most non-political actors while the enlisted MAGA are diehards.
So, unfortunately, the air force officer corps has gone pretty hardcore maga, the republicans spent decades shifting recruitment and ROTC to southern evangelicals with great success.
So… What happens if there aren’t cameras where the political abduction occurs? The government can just wait a few weeks then sell them to El Salvador and let their friends and family believe they are missing?
