A Turkish opposition lawmaker has said the country’s family minister described 891 youngsters under the age of 6living in prison with their mothers as “terrorists’ children,” the Velev news website reported.
In remarks to a parliamentary committee on Thursday, Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party said Turkey’s Minister of Family and Social Services Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş had told him in an earlier conversation that the youngsters were “terrorists’ children” and that the Justice Ministry, not her ministry, should deal with them. He raised the exchange as lawmakers debated a bill on family policies, including maternity leave and social media restrictions for minors.
According to Gergerlioğlu, there are 891 young children living in Turkish prisons with their mothers, who are either jailed pending trial or serving sentences. The number of children accompanying their mothers in prison in Turkey skyrocketed in the aftermath of a coup attempt on July 15, 2016, when thousands of women were arrested due to their alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has targeted followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated him as well as some members of his family and inner circle. He dismissed the probes as a Gülenist conspiracy and later designated the movement a terrorist organization in May 2016, intensifying a sweeping crackdown after the failed coup in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of orchestrating. The movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
