Turkish woman returned to prison with newborn 4 days after birth
Date posted: May 28, 2019
Hatice Şahnaz, in pretrial detention on charges of alleged links to the Gülen movement, was put back behind bars in southern Turkey a few days after delivering a baby.
Her four-day-old newborn, Safiye, joined more than 700 children who Turkey is keeping in jail with their mothers.
Relevant laws on the execution of sentences prohibit courts from arresting mothers for six months following birth.
The prison authorities did not allow her to bring in bottles, blankets, a stroller, diapers or clothing for the infant, saying these items could be procured inside.
The young mother was detained in September 2018.
She was arrested over her alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, which Turkey blames for a failed coup in 2016 and outlaws as a terrorist group.
The group denies any involvement in the coup or terrorism.
A petition campaign for her release was launched on change.org.
Sacrificing Gülen, however, will not bring Turkey in from the cold. While the pretext might have been rooting out Gülen’s followers, the reality is that Erdogan has used the purge to target secularists, liberals, and those officers whose training and experience in NATO he believes make them prone to oppose his vision and goals for Turkey.
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Sources said Swoboda made it very clear that the EU was very concerned about the state of the rule of law in Turkey. “We are very concerned about the rule of law and the separation of powers, especially the independence of the judiciary,” he stressed.
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