Little Girl Cries Out For Help For Jailed Mom, Missing Dad In Turkey


Date posted: May 9, 2017

An 11-year old Turkish girl has pleaded for the release of her mom who was jailed in Turkey as a hostage on false charges as part of Turkish government escalating witch hunt persecution targeting critics and opponents.

“You cannot imagine how I feel. I cannot sleep at night because I miss her. I just want my mom,” she wrote a letter sent to Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF), an advocacy group that monitors rights violations in Turkey.

The case of her mother, Nejla Akdağ, was featured in SCF’s April report that was titled “Jailing Women in Turkey: Systematic Campaign of Persecution and Fear” as an example how Turkish authorities jail women as a punishment for the crimes allegedly committed by their spouses.

“How would you know about the hole that was created in my little heart when police took away my mom, that the agony I feel churned my heart and the feeling of falling in an empty space?” the 11-year old wrote. She described how she was happily living in a family of five, going to school every week day, feeling the warmth of being loved by her parents, big brother and sister.

The little girl wrote the terrible tale of losing her grandmother who could not cope with police taking away her daughter under false charges. She said how it breaks her heart to see her 83-year old seriously ill grandfather crying out for his daughter while feeling helpless in taking care of the grandkids left behind.

Turkish authorities refused to release her mom and paced her solitary confinement for 17 days before being transferred to a cell she shares with others. There is no evidence of crime that warrants her detention pending trial but she was kept as a hostage in jail to force her missing husband to turn himself in.

Nejla Akdağ and her husband were working as teachers in a public school in the northwestern province Edirne until the government launched a massive purge against members of Gülen movement on trumped up charges. Nejla Akdağ was detained on August 30th, 2016, but was released afterwards to take care of her ailing 86 years’ old mother, Fahriye Asrak, who had cardiac health problems and was a paralyzed, bed-ridden patient. Nejla Akdağ’s 83-years old father also suffers from chronic heart problems and has a high blood sugar. Nejla Akdağ’s husband had left home to look for a job, but was not heard of him after police searched their home on August 30th, 2016.

Akdağ was detained again on January 27th, 2017 when police raided her home where she lived with three children and elderly parents. She showed her mother’s medical reports to the police, and told them that she had a sick mother and three children to take care of, the police said to her that she would be released when her husband surrenders. Akdağ was formally arrested three days later and sent to prison for a pre-trial detention after three days of detention in police custody. Her mother died only 10 days after her daughter was put in prison. She was not even able to attend to her funeral as she was being transferred from Edirne Prison to Tekirdağ Prison.

Akdağ’s two children reportedly refuses to go to the school after experienced the trauma of police raids to homes twice and the absence of both parent. The elder brother who was senior at a university had to drop out of the school to get a job and take care of his two little sisters. He tried to convince the prosecutor to release her mom by submitting medical reports that she suffers from serious health issues, lost weight, had trouble in confined spaces. Yet Turkish prosecutor told him that his mother would let go when the husband surrenders himself.

Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ on May 7 said 149,833 people have been investigated and 48,636 have been jailed as part of an investigation targeting the Gülen movement in the last eight months.

Fethullah Gülen who inspired Hizmet movement (popularly known as the Gülen movement) is one of the vocal critics of Turkish government. He has been outspoken figure in lambasting Turkey’s autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on corruption that was exposed in December 2013 as well as Ankara’s aiding and abetting of radical groups in Syria that was uncovered with illegal shipment revelation in January 2014. Erdoğan launched a witch-hunt persecution against Gülen and his followers.

 

Source: Stockholm Center for Freedom , May 9, 2017


Related News

Turkish-Armenian intellectual says failed coup staged to purge Gülen followers

Turkish-Armenian linguist and writer Sevan Nişanyan, who escaped from a prison in İzmir in July, shared his take on a failed coup in Turkey last year, saying it was staged in order to cleanse the Turkish military of followers of US-based Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.

Turkish nationals in South Africa fear abductions

“Yesterday we were sitting together, today they call us terrorists. Immediately overnight they changed.” A conspicuously distressed Turkish national uttered these words during an interview with The Star at the Nizamiye Mosque Complex in Midrand.

Political raids targeting educational institutions a ‘hate crime’

Samanyolu Education Foundation’s Lawyer Selamet Şen has stated that the measures constitute to nothing more than a hate crime and discrimination, underlining that the institutions are both open for inspections which they have passed with flying colors.

Liberal Turkish Journalists Champion Freedom of Expression, to a Degree

It’s precisely opposition journalists who have been criticized by colleagues who until recently worked for the newspapers of U.S.-based Fethullah Gulen. These colleagues accuse the opposition journalists of betraying freedom of expression. One of them is Sevgi Akarcesme who was editor-in-chief of the Turkish English-language daily Today’s Zaman. There is a great deal of truth in Akarcesme’s claims. But who today would dare defend journalists identified with Gulen?

Today’s Zaman Editor-in-Chief Bülent Keneş released pending trial

The İstanbul 8th Penal Court of Peace ruled on Wednesday to release Today’s Zaman Editor-in-Chief Bülent Keneş pending trial after deliberating on a petition by the lawyers of Keneş, who was arrested on Saturday and detained at Silivri Prison.

Erdoğan’s overarching purge is not a road accident

The purge of the Hizmet Movement is what the Kurdish question was to Kemalism, a necessary tool with which to construct a new national identity, a tool to silence those who question it, and to design a social and political system that will foster it. Unfortunately, Turkey has no chance of going back, even to its fragile and dysfunctional democracy, without this narrative being completely rejected.

Latest News

Fethullah Gulen – man of education, peace and dialogue – passes away

Fethullah Gülen’s Condolence Message for South African Human Rights Defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Hizmet Movement Declares Core Values with Unified Voice

Ankara systematically tortures supporters of Gülen movement, Kurds, Turkey Tribunal rapporteurs say

Erdogan possessed by Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler spirits?

Devious Use of International Organizations to Persecute Dissidents Abroad: The Erdogan Case

A “Controlled Coup”: Erdogan’s Contribution to the Autocrats’ Playbook

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

Purge-victim man sent back to prison over Gulen links despite stage 4 cancer diagnosis

In Case You Missed It

Today’s Zaman journalist faces deportation [from Turkey] over critical tweets on government

Islamic scholar gave Buddhist point to ponder

Faces of Manisa prisoners rendered unrecognizable due to torture, lawyer says

Scholars to discuss tolerance at Hizmet Movement conference in Taiwan

2014: Towards an “Empire of Fear”

Pro-gov’t columnist still threatening fellow journalists

Fethullah Gulen’s Statement on Devastating Bush Fires in Australia

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News