A pregnant woman was jailed in northwestern Turkey despite a law allowing the suspension of prison sentences for expectant mothers, after being convicted of alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, according to an opposition lawmaker, the TR724 news website reported.
Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a member of parliament from the pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), announced Leyla Arslan’s arrest on social media, saying she is five months pregnant and being held in Edirne L-Type Prison.
“Here is a photo of a mother, Leyla Arslan,” he said. “She has one child and is expecting another. She is being held in prison despite her pregnancy.”
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.
Arslan’s husband, Fikret Arslan, told TR724 that prison conditions are not suitable for a pregnant woman and that his wife’s pregnancy is “high risk.”
He shared a doctor’s report stating that Arslan’s new pregnancy requires close medical supervision due to her experiencing preeclampsia (a high blood pressure disorder that can occur during pregnancy) during her first pregnancy and that “both mother and baby face serious risks.” The report recommends that her monitoring and treatment take place at a medical facility outside the prison.
Fikret Arslan also said his wife has not been receiving her medication regularly and faces delays in accessing medical care.
“If she remains in prison, both her life and the baby’s life are in danger,” he said. “We ask for her immediate release.”
Leyla Arslan, who previously worked as an assistant manager at a student dormitory at Selahattin Eyyubi University, an institution shut down by government decree after a 2016 coup attempt, was sentenced to eight years, nine months in prison over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement. She was arrested on August 4, 2025, in Edirne, her family said.
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.
The family, who lives in Diyarbakır, said visiting Arslan in Edirne requires a 26 to 27-hour trip each way. According to her husband, a request to transfer her to a prison in Diyarbakır was approved on September 1, but the decision was later cancelled without explanation.
Arslan’s case comes just weeks after Merve Zayım, a teacher also jailed over links to the Gülen movement, gave birth while being held in pretrial detention in the same city. Rights groups condemned Zayım’s treatment, saying it underscored a broader pattern of pregnant women being detained in politically sensitive cases despite a law protecting them from imprisonment.
