A Turkish woman previously convicted of alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement has been arrested by a court and sent to prison despite being six-and-a-half-months pregnant, the TR724 news website reported on Sunday.
Nazife Karakoç was detained with her husband, Nihat Karakoç, on Friday while trying to cross into Greece to seek asylum. They were arrested by the İzmir 18th High Criminal Court on Saturday and are currently being held in Edirne L-Type Prison.
Nihat Karakoç had previously served time in prison and was freed on parole, a supervised release that includes restrictions such as bans on travel outside the country.
Attempting to leave Turkey without authorization constitutes a violation of those terms and can lead to re-arrest.
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.
In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.
Nazife Karakoç’s arrest was announced on X by Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a human rights advocate and an opposition lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party).
“The children were already struggling when their father spent six years in prison. Now their mother has been arrested with her husband. There is now another pregnant woman at risk of miscarriage in Edirne Prison,” he said.
Nazife Karakoç told the İzmir court via video link that she was in poor health due to a difficult pregnancy. “I’m going through a high-risk pregnancy and need regular checkups,” she said. She also cited caring for her other two children and her mother, who is undergoing cancer treatment, in requesting her release.
According to the Law on the Execution of Sentences and Security Measures, the enforcement of prison sentences for women who are pregnant or within six months after giving birth is postponed. If the baby dies or is placed in the care of someone other than the mother, the sentence is deferred until two months after birth. This provision is intended to protect the mother’s health during pregnancy and after delivery, as well as the development of the baby.
Nazife Karakoç had previously been arrested in February 2022 after being sentenced to prison for over six years and served four months before being released pending appeal. Her sentence was based on multiple charges, including working at a Gülen linked schools, using the ByLock messaging app, staying at a hotel allegedly affiliated with the Gülen movement and taking part in religious gatherings. Her case is currently under review by the Supreme Court of Appeals.
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 ByLock application, an encrypted messaging app that was available on Apple’s App Store and Google Play.
Since the coup attempt, the Turkish government has accepted such activities as having an account at Bank Asya, one of Turkey’s largest commercial banks at the time; using the ByLock messaging application; and subscribing to the Zaman daily or other publications affiliated with members of the movement as benchmarks for identifying and arresting alleged followers of the Gülen movement on charges of membership in a terrorist organization.
Nihat Karakoç was also sentenced to nine years in prison in 2017 for working at another shuttered institution. He was released on parole after serving six years.
