A Turkish woman imprisoned over alleged links to the Gülen movement attempted suicide on Thursday, one month before her scheduled release, the TR724 news website reported.
Melike Öztürk, 34, was found with self-inflicted injuries at the Afyon Women’s Open Prison, where she had been transferred four months earlier. Prison officials said she had performed morning prayers and returned to bed before being discovered with cut wrists. She reportedly had no memory of the act.
She remains hospitalized in serious condition and has undergone surgery.
Öztürk was serving a seven-and-a-half-year sentence for managing a now-closed girls’ dormitory in Isparta, a role authorities said linked her to the faith-based Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen.
Öztürk lost her 2-month-old baby while in police custody shortly after a 2016 coup attempt during which the Turkish government initiated mass arrests targeting Gülen-affiliated individuals.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement since corruption investigations revealed in 2013 implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan as well as members of his family 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 pursuing its followers. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following an abortive putsch in 2016, which he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
“This is the umpteenth case. The cruelty is beyond words,” said Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a member of the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), on X. “Her crime? Managing a dormitory.
Her husband, B. Öztürk, who served five years in prison on similar charges, appealed for her to be released to serve the remainder of her sentence at home.
“We’ve been devastated by this process. We lost our 2-month-old baby. We’ve been turned upside down, financially and emotionally,” he said in a message shared by Gergerlioğlu. “In December, my wife lost her brother in a traffic accident. It broke her. I’m begging you, please, let her come home.”
The case comes the same week another woman, a university student arrested in a recent wave of detentions targeting alleged Gülen movement members, also attempted suicide. Human rights advocates say the incidents highlight growing concerns over the treatment of detainees swept up in politically charged investigations.
According to a statement from Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç ahead of the eighth anniversary of the coup attempt last July, a total of 705,172 people have been investigated since the coup attempt on terrorism or coup-related charges due to their alleged links to the movement. Tunç said at the time that there were 13,251 people in prison in pretrial detention or convicted of terrorism in Gülen-linked trials.
These figures are thought to have increased over the past 10 months since the operations targeting Gülen followers continue unabated. Erdoğan and several government ministers said on many occasions that there would be no “slackening” in the fight against the movement following the cleric’s death at 83.
