Beyza Gülmen, who was detained during a December 15 statement to the press at İstanbul’s Çağlayan Courthouse demanding the release of 14 members of the Association for Solidarity with the Families of Detained and Convicted (TAYAD), was arrested on Thursday, Turkish media reported.
Beyza Gülmen is the younger sister of Nuriye Gülmen, an academic who became a symbol of resistance against the authoritarian practices of the Turkish government when she and her colleague Semih Özakça went on an almost yearlong hunger strike after they were dismissed from their jobs by an emergency decree.
Following a coup attempt on July 15, 2016 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 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.
Nuriye Gülmen was sentenced to 10 years on allegations of membership in the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) and has been incarcerated in İstanbul’s Silivri Prison for 29 months.
A statement posted on Twitter by the socialist Resistance Council said, “Beyza Gülmen was arrested not only because she is the sister of Nuriye Gülmen, who was dismissed by a decree-law and unlawfully sentenced to 10 years in prison, but because she also stood up for those suffering injustice.”
DİRENİŞLER MECLİSİ AÇIKLAMA:
BEYZA GÜLMEN TAHLİYE EDİLSİN! pic.twitter.com/ztcUXu8jlk— DİRENİŞLER MECLİSİ (@Direnis_Meclisi) December 20, 2022
