A group of police officers reportedly await outside Esenyurt Eslife Hospital in order to detain a woman who gave birth late on July 3, according to tweets posted by the woman’s family members.
Yasemin Yılmaz gave birth to a baby in İstanbul’s Esenyurt district on Thursday and Turkeypurge.com has just learned that despite her doctor’s objection, police now is at the hospital to detain the woman over her alleged links to the Gülen movement.
Yılmaz is being sought as part of an investigation carried out in Karabük, a city located 400 kilometers away from İstanbul. If detained, she will be taken to Karabük police station for further investigation.
Dozens of human tragedies in Turkey have been reported as a result of the government witch-hunt against the Gülen movement.
Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said that detention of women on coup charges shortly after giving birth is unacceptable, and called on Turkish authorities to stop “acting out of vengeance” in post-coup operations.
Speaking during a live show on HaberTürk TV on Monday, Kılıçdaroğlu drew attention to the human tragedies caused by the ongoing purge carried out by the government. Noting that an action should be taken only if there is a concrete evidence, he said that mothers and newly-born babies are being drifted apart without any legal reason.
“State does not act out of vengeance. State does not act with anger, animosity. If there is an evidence, you take it and do what is necessary. I gave many examples. A woman gives birth. And her 5-day old kid is taken away. And she is kept at a police station for 3 days. We have objected to this. This is wrong. How can something like this happen? Let’s say, that woman is guilty. What is that kid’s crime? Let him, at least, suckle at his mother’s breast. That baby needs milk. Believe me, we have brought forward similar incidents many times. She hardly understood any of it,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.
In a similar reaction, a CHP deputy revealed the dimensions of the ongoing government crackdown on people affiliated with the Gülen movement by sharing the story of a dismissed teacher and his wife who are being held in different sections of the same prison.
Speaking during a live show on Halk TV, Atila Sertel said he paid a visit to Şakran Women’s Prison in İzmir and witnessed the ongoing violations of even the most fundamental human rights.
According to Sertel, a housewife named Fadime and her teacher husband were arrested and put in different sections of the same prison, while their children were sent to Bitlis province. The couple is accused of involvement in the coup attempt on July 15, 2016.
Sertel criticized the Turkish government for arresting hundreds of housewives on coup charges, saying that he does not understand “how a housewife can be seen as a coup perpetrator.”
Here is what the opposition deputy said during the live TV show:
“If [someone] was involved in the coup attempt… If they took up arms… And if they are personally in the loop… We have nothing to say. They are putschists and can be punished. But a housewife… As our chairman [CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu] says: [Among those arrested] are baklava makers, coal dealers, woodsmen … housewives and people from every occupational group. Believe me, I went to that prison and I was told that… When our chairman was speaking, all the women in the cells of the prison were crying.
“I witnessed the same thing myself. I went to Şakran Women’s Prison where women are subjected to strip searches. They hung a banner that reads ‘All books except the Quran and textbooks are banned.’ A rule that is not applied in any prison. After I made it public, they removed it last week.
“I met a woman. Her name is Fadime. She came to me with her 9-month-old baby named Merve. She has three children. One of them is 3, one is 5 and the other is 9 months. Her teacher husband was dismissed due to membership in the Eğitim-Sen union after being suspended eight months ago. He found a job at a bakery. Her house was raided [by police]. Fadime did not tell them where her husband works… Simply because she does not know which bakery he works at. They [police] called the prosecutor, and the prosecutor ordered them to detain her, too. So she was detained.
“And now that woman is in the women’s section of the prison, while her husband is in the men’s section of the same prison. They are not allowed to see each other because, due to prison rules, they have no such right. Two of their kids went to Bitlis, while the other is staying with the mother. There are prison cells where 15 to 16 children are staying [with their mothers]. How can a housewife become a coup perpetrator? I don’t understand,” Sertel said.
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 new report titled “Jailing Women In Turkey: Systematic Campaign of Persecution and Fear” released in April by SCF has revealed.
According to data given by Turkey’s Justice Ministry, 560 children, aged between 0 to 6, are being held in Turkish prisons along with their mothers. In a written response to the main opposition Republican Peoples’ Party (CHP) deputy Gamze İlgezdi’s question motion on the subject, the justice ministry announced the number of children staying along with their mothers behind bars has hit 560 in April 2016. Children are taken into prison in the absence of family members to look after them outside.
Turkey survived a controversial coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that killed over 240 people. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with Turkey’s 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 participants of the Gülen movement in jails.
At least 161,751 people were detained or investigated and 50,334 people were arrested in Turkey in the framework of the Turkish government’s massive post-coup witch hunt campaign targeting alleged members of the Gülen movement since the controversial coup attempt on July 15, 2016, according to statistics reported by state-run Anadolu news agency by basing on information taken from the officials from Turkey’s Justice Minsitry on June 13. (SCF with turkeypurge.com) July 6, 2017
