A woman has been serving a seven-year, six-month prison sentence for conviction of links to the faith-based Gülen movement with her two young children accompanying her in prison, Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) MP Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu revealed on social media.
Fatma Öztimur has been incarcerated in Istanbul’s notoriously overcrowded Bakırköy Women’s Prison, accompanied by a 20-month-old baby and a 4-year-old child who is on the autism spectrum.
Gergerlioğlu described Öztimur’s situation as a “striking example of prison conditions,” where a mother has been constantly struggling to meet her children’s basic needs in an overcrowded facility at which 57 people are crammed into a 12-person cell.
Öztimur was accused of being a member of an association linked to the movement and downloading ByLock, an encrypted messaging app that was available on Apple’s App Store and Google Play.
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.
Although the European Court of Human Rights has in many cases made clear that use of the ByLock messaging app does not constitute a criminal offense, detentions and arrests of individuals continue in Turkey for their alleged use of the application.
Gergerlioğlu said Öztimur was struggling to care for her two children in prison, adding that her 4–year-old autistic child was still nonverbal and not receiving any special education. Without proper support, he warned, the child’s condition could worsen.
He argued that Öztimur’s sentence should be postponed to allow her to provide the care her children urgently need, adding that Bakırköy Women’s Prison was no place to raise children.
Bakırköy Prison has faced repeated criticism from human rights advocates over overcrowding and poor hygiene conditions, with reports of cells at times infested with mice and insects.
