A seven-months-pregnant woman was arrested on Tuesday in western Turkey’s Edirne province for alleged links to the Gülen movement, the Tr724 news website reported.
Mevlüde Göksü, who is expected to give birth in two months, was put in pretrial detention at the Edirne L-Type Prison. She was accused of sharing a house with members of the movement as a university student in 2015.
In her most recent court appearance Göksü said she was in the last trimester of her pregnancy and asked not to be sent to prison. Her appeal, however, fell on deaf ears.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, a faith-based group inspired by Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, since the corruption investigations of December 17-25, 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 to target its members. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following a coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the abortive putsch or any terrorist activity.
The Law on the Execution of Sentences and Security Measures stipulates that even if a pregnant woman is convicted, her sentence shall be postponed. According to the law, “execution of the prison sentence is delayed for women who are pregnant or have given birth within the last year and a half.”
Despite the regulations several pregnant women have recently been arrested for links to the movement.
