A former teacher was sentenced to over six years in prison for alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement and sent to prison on Saturday, accompanied by her four-month-old infant, the Kronos news website reported.
Sema Gökkan was accused of depositing money in Bank Asya, a now-closed financial institution linked to the Gülen movement and for using ByLock, an encrypted messaging application widely available on Apple’s App Store and Google Play.
Her sentence has not yet been upheld by the Supreme Court of Appeals; however, fearing that her conviction would be confirmed, she reportedly attempted to cross into Greece and they were apprehended by Greek border forces and deported back to Turkey, where she was picked up by the police at the border city of Edirne. Due to the circumstances of her arrest, Gökkan will await final adjudication in prison with her young son.
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 his inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement a terrorist organization and began targeting its supporters. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following a coup attempt in 2016, which he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement consistently denied involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Following the abortive putsch the Turkish government accepted such activities as having an account at now-closed Bank Asya, one of Turkey’s largest commercial banks at the time, using ByLock, subscribing to the Zaman daily or other publications affiliated with the members of the movement, as benchmarks for identifying and arresting alleged followers of the Gülen movement on charges of membership in a terrorist organization.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has previously ruled that such activities do not constitute criminal offenses and that Turkish authorities have violated Articles 6 (right to a fair trial), 7 (no punishment without law), and 11 (freedom of assembly and association) of the European Convention on Human Rights by convicting individuals based solely on these activities.
Gökkan, a former English teacher, was among many dismissed from their job by government decree after the coup attempt. Her husband, who spent five years in prison on similar charges, expressed anguish over their family’s plight.
“My daughter, now eight years old, grew up without me. I was in prison while she was growing up. Now, her mother is in prison,” Osman Gökkan said. “My son will grow up without his father and my daughter without her mother. This is unbearable.”
Prominent human rights defender and Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) deputy Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu condemned the mother’s arrest, calling it a “family tragedy.”
Human rights advocates have raised alarm over cases like Gökkan’s, particularly as Turkish law prohibits the incarceration of mothers with children under 18 months of age. Law No. 5275 stipulates that such individuals should be released pending trial.
At last count, there are 759 children accompanying their mothers in Turkish prisons.
