Tahir Özger, a five-year old boy whose mother has been imprisoned very recently, was operated in the absence of his mother in Kayseri province, reported Aktif Haber online news portal.
The boy reportedly risks abasia over cerebral palsy because of lack of physiotherapy in the absence of his mother. Five-year-old Tahir Özger, also faces risk of incapability to walk based upon his legs and arms having myotonia if he cannot receive physical therapy on a regular basis.
According to the report, Tahir’s mother Gülten Özger was detained on September 29, 2017 in Kayseri province when she was at her father’s home although she has explained her son’s health situation with the official documents. She was arrested by a local court on October 5, 2017 in Turkey’s Adana province on the basis of escape risk despite of her son is in need of her care on the account of being 60 percent physically disabled.
Tahir’s mother was taking care of his needs along with keeping him company to go to physiotherapy every day until she was detained and put in jail. She has also taken Tahir on daily basis to kindergarten he was enrolled. Tahir’s elder sibling has also reportedly began primary school this year.
Responding to a parliamentary question from pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Müslüm Doğan, Turkey’s Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gül said as of April 2017 a total of 594 children under the age of 6 were being kept in Turkish prisons along with their mothers.
Children are taken to prison in the absence of family members to look after them. It has become a common occurrence that both parents are taken into custody, leaving no one to care for the children. The Turkish government, on many occasions, has detained pregnant women as well.
More than 17,000 women in Turkey, many with small children, have been jailed in an unprecedented crackdown and 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 by SCF has revealed.
Turkey survived a controversial military coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that killed 249 people. Immediately after the putsch the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with Turkish autocratic 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’s Justice Ministry announced on July 13 that 50,510 people have been arrested and 169,013 have been the subject of legal proceedings on coup charges since the failed coup. Turkish government has also suspended or dismissed more than 150,000 judges, teachers, police and civil servants after the coup attempt.
