Protest treatment of Kseniia Petrova
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Editor,
In Russia, if you openly express opinions against the tyrant in power you will very likely be arrested and thrown in prison. If you demonstrate on the street against Putin and his policies, this is also very likely.
Instead, imagine this: You’re a Harvard grad student, working on how cells can rejuvenate themselves, with the goal of fending off the damage of aging. You’ve been working for months, nonstop. Your boss suggests you take a break. You fly to France to visit friends, fellow scientists who, along with you, have also fled Russia. While there you visit another medical lab and they give you some frog embryos to take back to the U.S. to aid in the research you’ve been doing.
You fly back. You’re met at Logan International Airport and customs officials there detain and arrest you for failing to declare the embryos in your possession. (Why did she fail to declare them? Maybe she got rattled.)
She’s been hauled off to a prison in Louisiana where she’s being held in a big room with 90 women, no privacy, very cold, lousy conditions, and for what reason?
This is a 30-year-old woman who was doing the world good. Working on something that could benefit all of us. She is, by all accounts, brilliant. We are fortunate to have her. Instead of thanking her for her dedicated service, the Trump administration wants to drive her out of the country and send her back to Russia, where she will no doubt, be thrown into prison. This works against every bit of humanity and logic. Please write to your representatives and protest this idiocy. (Her name is Kseniia Petrova.)
Eugene Beckes
St. Ignatius
