Melek İpek, the 78-year-old mother of Turkish tycoon Akın İpek, currently living in exile, was detained in Ankara on Saturday to begin serving a prison sentence for conviction of alleged links to the Gülen movement, a faith-based group outlawed by Turkish government, Turkish Minute reported on Saturday.
The decision against Melek İpek, who suffers from numerous health issues, was upheld by Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals in 2021. She has now been remanded to Ankara’s Sincan Prison to serve out the sentence.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim Cleric Fethullah Gülen, since the corruption investigations of 2013, which implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan, his family members and his inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began targeting its members. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following an abortive putsch in 2016, which he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Koza İpek Holding and numerous valuable personal assets were seized by the government in 2015. Akın İpek, the holding company founder, was in the UK at the time and decided not to return to Turkey. The Turkish government subsequently filed a formal extradition request for İpek that was rejected by a UK court.
The İpek family has faced legal challenges and government scrutiny since Turkey branded the Gülen movement a terrorist organization in 2015. Several members of the İpek family have been charged with crimes. An Ankara court handed down a prison sentence of 79 years, eight months for Cafer Tekin İpek, Akın İpek’s brother, and he has been behind bars initially in pretrial detention, since April 2016.
“This morning, they took my mother, Hacı Melek İpek, too. … She is elderly. … She has so many health issues, I’ve lost count. They’ve decided she should spend the last years of her life in prison,” Akın İpek tweeted.
Speaking to the Kronos news website, Akın İpek said his mother had been taken without prior warning, expressing his dismay over her detention.
“My mother is currently being taken to Sincan Prison. I’m trying to recover from the shock. They took her without warning this morning. She hardly ever left the house. She can barely walk. She’s nearly 80. She has asthma, fibromyalgia and numerous other health issues. She’s a woman who spends her days with the Quran in her hands. Now, she will spend the last years of her life in prison,” he told the news outlet, adding, “The family is already shattered; she doesn’t see anyone. She used to talk to [Cafer] Tekin once a week by phone, but now she won’t even have that. This is a disaster. I’m just trying to cope.”
Melek İpek was a well-known and respected woman even among ruling AKP circles as a pioneer of charity activities before the government crackdown on the Gülen movement began.
She received a prison sentence of six years, three months for “membership in a terrorist organization” over alleged links to the Gülen movement, in addition to a four-year, two-month sentence for allegedly violating Capital Markets Board (SPK) regulations.
Melek and her son, Cafer Tekin, were among 20 defendants tried in January 2021. Following a ruling by the Ankara 24th High Criminal Court, shares in Koza İpek Holding were transferred to the Turkish Ministry of Treasury and Finance, and a government-appointed board of trustees has managed the company since its seizure in 2015.
In July 2020, Melek İpek was forcibly removed from her home as part of a government crackdown on the Gülen movement’s assets.
Following the failed coup, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and carried out a massive purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight. More than 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, as well as over 24,000 members of the armed forces, were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with terrorist organizations by emergency decree-laws, subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.
In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.
Since the coup attempt, a total of 705,172 people have been investigated on terrorism or coup-related charges due to their alleged links to the movement. There are currently 13,251 people in prison who are in pretrial detention or convicted of terrorism in Gülen-linked trials.
The İpek family’s ordeal is among numerous cases involving alleged Gülen-affiliated individuals who have faced legal action in Turkey. Several human rights organizations have raised concerns over the Turkish government’s treatment of prisoners, including elderly detainees and those with health complications.
