“If any of the people involved in her detention could just sit down and talk with her for 30 seconds, they would know that this was a huge mistake,” said Madeline McGee, 28, who studied alongside Öztürk at the Eliot-Pearson Child Study and Human Development program at Tufts. “She just has this gentleness, and this kindness, and this authenticity that she brings to every interaction.”

Friends, colleagues, former professors and Öztürk’s family said the US government, which whisked her to a detention facility in Louisiana before a judge could intervene, has misrepresented Öztürk’s actions and her character. On Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Öztürk had helped destabilize her campus as part of the pro-Palestinian movement last year.

“We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree,” Rubio said. “Not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses.”

Multiple people who know Öztürk told the Globe, however, that she had not been a leading figure in protests at Tufts last spring.

It was likely Öztürk’s devotion for the safety and inclusion of all children that compelled her to write an op-ed in the Tufts student newspaper last year, loved ones said, where along with three coauthors, the group criticized the university’s response to the pro-Palestinian movement.

In it, the authors urged Tufts to “end its complicity with Israel insofar as it is oppressing the Palestinian people and denying their right to self-determination,” and requested that the university divest from companies with ties to Israel.

The Department of Homeland Security has so far provided no evidence of its claim she supported Hamas.

“She wasn’t even in the front lines of any protest,” said Culi, a friend of Öztürk’s for almost a decade, since they first met studying at Şehir University in Istanbul. She asked to be identified by her nickname for fear of retaliation from the federal government, as she is also in the US on a visa. “I still don’t understand — why would they choose her? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Culi said Öztürk became worried after her information was recently added to Canary Mission, a website that compiles information about pro-Palestinian students and professors, and which activists say has led to harassment. She started to look for a lawyer and told some of their mutual friends that she had noticed a car following her for two days before she was apprehended, Culi said.

“It became so tense that she was scared for her well-being,” Culi, 36, said.

In a statement on social media, Asım Öztürk, Rümeysa’s brother, said she had about 10 months left in her doctorate degree at Tufts.

“Beyond expressing her views within the framework of free speech, she was not involved in any provocative or aggressive actions related to Palestine,” Asım Öztürk said in Turkish. “My sister has merely voiced concerns about the injustices faced by Palestinians.”

He added: “If her crime was to put her name down on an op-ed because she feels disturbed about the events in Palestine and she felt morally obliged to express her freedom of speech, then what has happened to her is scandalous.”

Jessie Rossman, legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts who is now on Öztürk’s legal team, told the Globe in an interview on Friday: “This targeting is retaliatory and an attempt to punish her for her protected speech.”

No attorney could reach Öztürk until more than 24 hours after her apprehension, Rossman said. They soon learned that Öztürk had suffered an asthma attack on her way to Louisiana.

“Rümeysa is scared. Her future feels very uncertain. She’s someone who, her education is extraordinarily important to her, and she wants to be able to finish her doctoral degree,” Rossman said.

On Friday, US District Judge Denise Casper ordered the government not to remove Öztürk from the US until Casper rules on jurisdiction issues. And she gave the government until 5 p.m. Tuesday to respond to a petition from Öztürk’s team that accused authorities of violating her freedom of speech and due process rights.

Instead of being an activist, Öztürk’s friends and family said, they know her to be a student who spent her free time volunteering with refugee children, the first friend to reach out when a loved one died, a welcoming classmate who regularly participated in interfaith gatherings, and an academic who committed herself to representation for children of all backgrounds in the media.

“I think she would call herself a researcher, she would call herself a teacher — but activist is probably not a label that she would apply to herself,” said McGee, her former classmate from Tufts.

Öztürk’s devotion to children began when she was young. During her undergraduate years, Culi and Öztürk spent their weekends at the height of the Syrian Civil War volunteering with refugee children building new lives in Turkey. They helped them with schoolwork, craft projects, and other activities to work through the trauma many had endured.

Öztürk, who comes from a family of academics, cherished the opportunity to study in the United States, where she moved in 2018.

Asım Öztürk said his sister had double majored in psychology and literature in her undergraduate degree, and had been awarded a Fulbright scholarship to receive her master’s at Columbia.

Nathan Holbert, a professor at Columbia, taught Öztürk in 2019 when she audited his class, despite an already full course load. She developed a project to help children in Turkey explore math and geometry by using patterns and motifs found in Turkish art, he said.

Tufts professor W. George Scarlett, who worked alongside Öztürk to put on an antiracism poetry festival in 2021, said Öztürk was someone who looked to bring about change peacefully, “not in the scream and holler way.”

The poetry festival, which brought together student poets and professionals, served as “an example of Rümeysa’s dedication to having us all care about one another,” Scarlett said.

Khadija Baldeh, who was a member of the Muslim Students Association at Columbia while Öztürk was in the developmental psychology program at Teacher’s College there, said she met Öztürk in the association and they became close. They attended gatherings with Jewish and Christian leaders at the university almost weekly, Baldeh said.

At these celebrations, students from all religions — including Öztürk — “came together beautifully,” Baldeh, 26 said.

Another friend, Telli Davoodi, had originally hired Öztürk as a research assistant at Boston University. She said in addition to her passion for children, she also cared about the “little beautiful things in the world,” like hosting friends for Turkish tea or buying baked goods and flowers from shops near her whimsically decorated Somerville apartment.

Öztürk sent along a few words to her family and friends this week, trying to assuage their worries, a text message from her mother shared with friends shows: “She asked her lawyer to convey that she loves us.”

In a statement to the Globe, her brother said that the family was “very sad and worried about Rümeysa.”

“But we remain hopeful for her,” he said. “We hope Rümeysa will return to her normal life and continue her education as soon as possible.”

Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @giuliamcdnr. Samantha J. Gross can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @samanthajgross.