A Turkish woman previously sentenced to over six years for her alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement has been arrested by a court and sent to prison accompanied by her 16-month-old daughter, the TR724 news website reported on Saturday.
Deniz Gündoğdu and her child were on their way to Greece to seek asylum in Europe when they were arrested by Turkish police on July 2 and are now held in the Edirne L-Type Prison.
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.
Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu of the pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) wrote on X that “the law says babies up to 18 months do not go to prison, yet another baby has entered prison with her mother.”
Under Law No. 5275, children up to age six stay with incarcerated mothers when no other caregiver is available, but the same legislation lets courts postpone a woman’s sentence if she has given birth within the previous 18 months. Rights groups say such postponements are rarely granted.
The mother, homemaker Gündoğdu, had previously been sentenced to six years, three months over alleged links to the movement, but Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals overturned the verdict last month and ordered a retrial.
Fearing a fresh conviction, Gündoğdu tried to leave Turkey with her daughter.
In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.
In a written message shared by the lawmaker, Gündoğdu’s husband, Vahit Murat Gündoğdu, said there is a serious mosquito problem in the prison and that officials make it extremely difficult to buy something as simple as insect-repellent spray.”
“Because prison meals are very poor,” he said, “my daughter needs supplementary baby formula, but although the warden’s office says it has processed our request, it still has not met this essential need.”
Vahit Murat Gündoğdu said he himself spent nearly six years in prison on similar Gülen movement charges before being released last year.
