Turkish gov’t jails yet another woman with 25-day-old baby


Date posted: December 28, 2018

Ayşe Şeyma Taş, who gave birth 25 days ago, was jailed together with her newborn baby by the Turkish government led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday in the Ferizli district of Sakarya province as part of its massive post-coup witch hunt targeting alleged members of the Gülen movement.

According to tweet on Tuesday by Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a human rights activist and deputy from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) as well as a medical doctor and a member of the legislature’s Human Rights Commission, Taş gave birth 25 days ago. She was arrested and sent to a prison in Sakarya’s Ferizli district along with her 25-day-old infant.

Gergerlioğlu stated on his personal Twitter account: “This is cruelty, a violation of the rules and a mockery of the law. The judge also scolded the woman, saying, ‘Why did you deliver the baby?”

There are currently more than 700 children in Turkish prisons. The mothers of most of the children in Turkish jails have been arrested as part of a government crackdown on followers of the Gülen movement in the aftermath of a controversial coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016, and most of them are in pre-trial detention and not yet convicted of a crime.

According to data from the Turkish Justice Ministry concerning the number of children who are in jail with their mothers, there were 560 such children in 2016, 128 of whom were aged one, 114 aged two, 81 aged three, 70 aged four, 31 aged five and five of whom were aged six as well as 17 other children whose ages were not known by the authorities.

The women have been accused of providing scholarships, arranging sales, depositing money in private lender Bank Asya, sending their children to schools affiliated with the Gülen movement, subscribing to the Zaman or Bugün newspapers or using the ByLock smartphone messaging application. Women who go to hospitals seeking birth control or to give birth have also been targets of the massive post-coup witch hunt conducted by the Erdoğan government.

According to the Turkish Penal Code’s Article 5275, “the sentence of imprisonment is set aside/postponed for women who are pregnant or who are within six months of delivery.” Experts say that according to the law, the arrest of pregnant women and those who have infants younger than six months of age is not possible at all. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) also takes born or unborn children under protection.

However, women and mothers who have been jailed in the unprecedented crackdown have been subjected to torture and ill-treatment in detention centers and prisons as part of the government’s systematic campaign of intimidation and persecution of critics and opponents, a report titled “Jailing Women In Turkey: Systematic Campaign of Persecution and Fear released in April 2017 by SCF revealed.

In several cases, mothers were detained in the hospital immediately after the delivery of a baby and before they had a chance to recover. Many mothers were jailed as they were visiting their imprisoned husbands, leaving the children stranded in the ensuing chaos.

In a 28-page report issued by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in March 2018 emphasized on the detention, arrest, and torture of pregnant women and children in Turkey in 2017.

The report said that “OHCHR estimates that approximately 600 women with young children were being held in detention in Turkey as of December 2017, including about 100 women who were pregnant or had just given birth.

“OHCHR documented at least 50 cases of women who had given birth just prior to or just after being detained or arrested. OHCHR received a report concerning a woman who was sexually assaulted by a police officer during the arrest. Moreover, NGOs brought to the attention of OHCHR at least six cases of women who were detained while they were visiting their spouses in prison. They were either detained together with their children or violently separated from them.”

Hundreds of thousands of people in Turkey have been the subject of legal proceedings in the last two years on charges of membership in the Gülen movement since a coup attempt on July 15, 2016, a Turkish Justice Ministry official told a symposium on July 19, 2018.

“Legal proceedings have been carried out against 445,000 members of this organization,” Turkey’s pro-government Islamist news agency İLKHA quoted Turkish Justice Ministry Deputy Undersecretary Ömer Faruk Aydıner as saying.

Turkey survived a controversial military coup attempt on July 15, 2016, that killed 249 people. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.

Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.

Turkey has suspended or dismissed about 170,000 judges, teachers, police and civil servants since July 15, 2016. On December 13, 2017, the Justice Ministry announced that 169,013 people have been the subject of legal proceedings on coup charges since the failed coup.

Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu announced on April 18, 2018, that the Turkish government had jailed 77,081 people between July 15, 2016, and April 11, 2018, over alleged links to the Gülen movement.

Source: Stockholm Center for Freedom , November 13, 2018


Related News

South Africa is not a hunting ground for Erdogan

South Africans know what it means to be detained without trial and tortured. With that history in mind, the ANC-led government is not about to extradite a list of Turkish expats working in South Africa to Turkey, where their detention and torture is likely.

Three political risks that Turkey might be exposed to

Economic indicators in Turkey cannot bear the political risk anymore. The currency rates go up whenever President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan makes a statement. Before the elections I had warned that Erdoğan’s election victory would bring instability, but nobody believed this. There are now three major fields of conflict and uncertainty before Turkey.

To save itself, Turkish govt stabs hard-won democracy

“I don’t want to say that – but this is an executive coup over judiciary,” lawmaker Bal said. He noted that blaming the graft scandal on a “parallel state” – a phrase Erdogan often employs to describe his alleged opponents within the state – significantly damages Turkey’s reputation.

What Erdogan and Khomeini Have in Common

The Turkish secular elite who have long feared an Iranian-style theocracy in their own country may finally be seeing the worst of their fears come true. The widespread purges under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan following last month’s failed coup attempt against his government suggest the Turkish state is moving toward authoritarian Islamist rule of the sort that Iran introduced in 1979.

Turkish consulate in Rotterdam seized passports of Gulen-supporters

The Turkish consulate in Rotterdam confiscated the Turkish passports of a number of Dutch-Turkish people believed to be affiliated with the Gulen movement. The people involved were told that they are now classified as a fugitive and were given a one-day passport to fly to Turkey and prove their innocence in front of a judge.

Witch-hunt-targeted mother dies in Kabul, family could not attend funeral in Turkey

İsmail Eyüpoğlu (42), who has been living abroad for 25 years, lost his wife early in the morning on Saturday, February 3. He was straddled between the idea of going back to Turkey with his children and bid farewell to his wife for 18 years in her last journey and on the other hand, the fear of being arrested at the airport and sadden his two children.

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

Abant Platform convenes to discuss problems of Turkish education system

Gülen says many would like to be in detained journalists’ shoes

Helping hands to Kosova

Turkey’s STV opens Washington studio, first among Turkish TV networks

Turkey After the July Coup Attempt – Alan Makovsky’s testimony before Committee on Foreign Affairs

Symposium concludes: Hizmet movement contributes to world peace

GYV President Mustafa Yeşil answers questions about the Gulen movement

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News