The mother of a recent university graduate with a serious heart condition said she feared her son could suffer a medical emergency while in police custody, after he was detained in nationwide raids targeting alleged members of the faith-based Gülen movement.
According to a woman who contacted the TR724 news outlet and requested anonymity, police detained her son at their home in Ankara and transported him to Gaziantep, where the operation originated, despite his chronic illness. He has a severely weakened heart, functioning at only 35 percent, and relies on four daily medications. Doctors have warned that if his heart function drops further, he may need a pacemaker.
“It is unlawful and inhumane to hold him in custody in this condition,” the woman said. “He had just graduated and started a new job. I’m deeply worried about his health and want him released.”
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 members of his family 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 pursuing its followers. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following an 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.
The woman said her son first developed complications after a childhood infection and that his condition worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. She described him as under regular medical supervision and said his doctors were closely monitoring his heart function.
Turkish law allows suspects to be held for up to 48 hours, longer in terrorism-related cases, before appearing in court. International human rights standards, including the European Convention on Human Rights, prohibit the detention of individuals with serious medical needs without adequate care, calling it a potential violation of the ban on inhuman or degrading treatment.
The woman also said her son had been previously stopped and questioned by plainclothes officers who pulled him into a car and interrogated him about his housemates, all children of parents dismissed under post-coup emergency decrees (KHK).
“They told him it wasn’t normal for people from KHK families to stay together,” she said, “and asked if anyone came to the house to pray or read the Quran.”
Following the failed coup, 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. Over 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, and more than 24,000 members of the armed forces 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.
Since the coup attempt, a total of 705,172 people have been investigated on terrorism or coup-related charges due to their alleged links to the movement. There are currently 13,251 people in prison who are in pretrial detention or convicted of terrorism in Gülen-linked trials.
In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.
