İstanbul woman suffers miscarriage in police custody


Date posted: September 30, 2017

Büşra Atalay, a Turkish woman who has previously been dismissed from her job over alleged Gülen links, lost her unborn child when she was detained and interrogated at an İstanbul hospital on Thursday.

Atalay was detained by police at İstanbul Pendik Yüzyıl Hospital on Thursday over her alleged links to Turkey’s Gülen group, which the Turkish government accuses of masterminding a coup attempt last year. Despite her doctor’s objection, she was detained and interrogated by police for several hours during which she endured some bleeding and eventually lost her baby at her 24th week.

According to several Turkish media outlets and twitter users, Atalay was pregnant with twins and she therefore gave preterm birth to the second baby.

Since the coup attempt on July 15, Turkey has turned into a hub of people victimized by the purge carried out by the Turkish government. The ruling party of Turkey and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused the Gülen group of masterminding the coup attempt and launched a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.

The movement denies any involvement.

However, the Turkish government dismissed over 138,000 people from state jobs, detained more than 110,000 and imprisonment of nearly 55,000 over alleged links to the group.

This is not the first-time Turkish police have waited outside a hospital room to detain a woman who just had a baby, as part of a government witch-hunt against Gülenists.

In July, Rümeysa Doğan in an Antalya hospital and Ayşe Kaya from Edirne were detained by police after delivery.

On June 2, Elif Aslaner, a religious education teacher who gave birth to a baby May 31 at a private hospital in Bursa, was detained due to alleged links to the Gülen group.

In May, Aysun Aydemir, an English teacher who gave birth to a baby in an elective cesarean procedure, was detained at the hospital and subsequently arrested by a court and put in pretrial detention with a 3-day-old baby in Zonguldak province as part of the witch-hunt targeting the Gülen group.

In late January, Fadime Günay, who gave birth to a baby, was detained by police at Antalya’s Alanya Başkent Hospital for alleged links to the Gülen movement.

In early January, Ş.A., a former private school teacher and mother of a week-old premature infant, was taken into police custody over links to the movement while she was on her way to the hospital to feed the baby.

A day after Ş.A. was taken into police custody, another woman known as Meryem gave birth to twins by C-section at a hospital in Konya and was detained by police despite hospital reports said that she should not travel and was taken to Aksaray from Konya in a police car.

 

Source: Turkey Purge , September 30, 2017


Related News

Torture – Turkish prisoner says tied to chair, pushed into sea while under custody

A Turkish man, identified with his initials D.G., was bound to a chair and pushed into sea on multiple times as police officers tortured him while under custody. Detained as part of an investigation into the Gulen movement in October 2016, D.G. was put in pre-trial detention after days of torture, he told his brother during latter’s recent visit to the prison.

The Erdoğan-Did-It Conspiracy

While on its face, the notion that elements in the Turkish military loyal to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan deliberately launched a “fake coup” to justify a crackdown on Erdoğan’s enemies sounds farfetched, the belief is taking hold not only among Turkey’s staunch secularist minority and followers of Pennsylvania-based cleric Fethullah Gülen, but also among those who know the Turkish military well.

In controversial move Parliament votes to shut down prep schools

The removal of prep schools, however, remains an unsettled dispute, with opponents to the bill saying that without eliminating standardized testing for university entrance, the move will only serve to hamper the poorer high school students’ plans to attend universities, as socioeconomic disparity shows itself in exam results.

Turkish paper says journalist expelled for criticizing Erdogan

“A body linked to the prime minister received a tip that I insulted high-level officials and informed the Interior Ministry (which) decided to deport me,” Zeynalov said by phone from the Azeri capital Baku, adding his application to renew his permit to work as a journalist in Turkey had been denied last month.

US professor urges Washington not to extradite Gülen to Turkey

An American professor from Columbia University has urged Washington not to extradite Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen to Turkey, noting that attacks on Gülen are part of a pattern to silence dissent.

49-member team to report to President Erdoğan on Gülen-linked trials

A group of 49 people, nine experts from Turkey’s State Inspection Council and 40 key advisers of President Tayyip Erdoğan, will closely monitor trials concerning the Gülen movement and submit reports to the president.

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

Gulen’s peace award: Upswing in Islam’s global image?

Pro-gov’t daily claims White House held special session on Gülen

Pro-AKP media flop as corruption charges swell

The Hizmet Movement: Reflections from Sri Lanka

Trustees seize control of schools in government-led move

Gülen seeks to dismiss US lawsuit, says it is ‘pure political theater’

Fethullah Gulen’s Maxim: Live So That Others May Live

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News