Mervane Albayrak, a former teacher previously sentenced to more than six years in prison for alleged ties to the Gülen movement, was arrested while taking her severely disabled son to a hospital and sent to prison, the TR724 news website reported.
Her husband, Muhammed Albayrak, who was called to pick up his son, said she was detained in the northwestern province of Edirne, which shares a border with Greece and Bulgaria, and later arrested on suspicion of attempting to flee the country.
The detention occurred as she was taking their three-and-a-half-year-old son, Muaz Safa, to a hospital for a check-up. Muaz suffers from Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a progressive and fatal disease that weakens muscles, eventually affecting the heart and respiratory system. Most patients with DMD succumb to the disease in their 20s.
“She had no prior arrest warrant and was only carrying our child’s bag,” Muhammed Albayrak said. “This is unjust and cruel.”
Mervane Albayrak, who previously taught chemistry at a prep school in Denizli that was shut down by a government decree following a 2016 coup attempt, was accused of depositing money in Bank Asya, a now-defunct financial institution linked to the Gülen movement, and using ByLock, an encrypted messaging app that was publicly available before the coup attempt. Her prison sentence has not yet been reviewed by the Supreme Court of Appeals, but she will await its final decision in jail.
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 the 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
Muhammed Albayrak said his wife had been followed by police vehicles prior to her arrest.
“This is harassment,” he said. He also expressed concern about managing his son’s intensive medical needs along with caring for their young daughter.
The arrest has drawn condemnation from Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a member of parliament from the pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM). “Now they’ve arrested a sick child’s mother. What more will we see?” Gergerlioğlu said on X.
Muhammed Albayrak described the family’s struggles in the wake of his wife’s detention. “Our son, who has over 90 percent disability, now has no mother. This is a devastating ordeal for us,” he said, adding that he plans to appeal the decision. Emphasizing that his wife’s detention was both unjust and cruel, he detailed the unexpected hardship the family now faces. “I have to leave my daughter alone at home and take Muaz Safa to physical therapy several times a week,” he said. “Because of these demands, I might lose my job, and our troubles will only multiply.” He called for his wife’s immediate release to allow the family to cope with their challenging circumstances.
Under a Turkish law, known as the “Yusuf Kerim Act,” mothers with seriously ill children are eligible for deferral of prison sentences for up to one year, extendable for six months at a time up to four times. Advocates argue this law should have been applied to Mervane Albayrak.
“My wife has been unjustly detained, and we are now facing an unimaginable crisis,” Muhammed Albayrak said. “We urge authorities to release her immediately so we can focus on our son’s care.”
