A 3-year-old boy living in a Turkish prison with his mother, who was convicted of alleged links to the Gülen movement, was not allowed to see his father by prison authorities, according to the TR724 news website.
Utku Keklik has been staying with his mother, Havva Keklik, who is serving a six-year, three-month sentence handed down in 2020. She was arrested in Ankara on September 10 and sent to Sincan Prison after the Supreme Court of Appeals upheld her sentence.
His father, Latif Keklik, was prevented from meeting with his son during the November 20 visit, with prison officials citing new restrictions imposed after a convict severely injured his visiting son in another facility.
Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM), shared Latif Keklik’s account of the visit on X, saying he was only allowed to see his son for two minutes after a female guard granted permission.
Gergerlioğlu condemned the authorities’ refusal to let the child see his father as inhumane, arguing that such measures inflict emotional harm on the child.
Havva Keklik was convicted of membership in a terrorist organization based on activities that Turkish courts consider indicative of Gülen movement affiliation, including staying in a girls’ dormitory affiliated with the movement, mentoring university students, organizing charity events and using ByLock, an encrypted messaging application once widely available on Apple’s App Store and Google Play that Turkish authorities claim served as a secret communication tool for Gülen supporters.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations revealed in 2013 implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan as well as some of his family members and inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and a conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan began to target the movement’s members. He designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016 and intensified the crackdown on it following the abortive putsch in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
According to a recent Civil Society in the Penal System (CISST) report, a total of 822 children under the age of 6 are living with their mothers in Turkish prisons.
