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.
It’s not about a conflict between the government and Hizmet movement
Insanity ripples through the country, the media and the people. If graft or corruption is the prevailing form of life spreading from the state to society, and if this form of life is supported by people, then we are hitting the bottom day by day. A prosecutor can say “We can detain 500 thousand people if necessary” and still hold his post as if he said quite an ordinary thing. Whereas in Europe mental health of such a prosecutor would be called into question and most probably examined.
First purification, next habituation
First of all, in terms of historical settings and cultural codes, Turkey has never found the solid ground to have a fully fledged democracy. The political elites have paid lip service to democracy and viewed democracy as an “electoral democracy.” As we see today, once the political elites have come to power they have adhered to authoritarian practices and curbed freedom and rule of law with the aim to serve their own interests.
Minister Çelik supports Gülen’s call for Alevi-Sunni brotherhood
“I know Gülen is in a struggle for taking precautions beforehand, by telling the possible problems that may occur in the future,” Minister Çelik stated. He supported the call “Let the mosque and the cemevi be side by side,” by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.
Gülen: purge of public officials seems ‘arbitrary’
The Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, who has inspired the popular civic and social Hizmet (Service) movement, has said that the reassignment of thousands of public officials from their posts without any disciplinary procedures following the Dec. 17, 2013 corruption scandal seems to have been conducted on an arbitrary basis.
5 children abandoned in front of prison as mother detained
A video shared on social media shows five children left alone in tears in front of a Prison in Ankara after their mother was detained while they were visiting their father in prison. In the video a child opens the door of a car in the prison parking lot, showing his brothers crying, and says in tears, “We are five brothers, left alone. We have a handicapped brother. I commend those people to God’s punishment.”
The Remarkable Scale of Turkey’s “Global Purge”
The global purge further erodes hopes that the end of the Cold War and expansion of the liberal order would result in democratic consolidation. The global purge is a threat not just to the Turkish diaspora but to the rule of law everywhere.
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