A news report has revealed on Thursday that the 28-year-old Turkish woman, Nurhayat Yıldız, has miscarried her twins in a prison and the dead bodies of her babies have not been returned to any of her family members.
According to a report by Aktif Haber, a Turkish online news portal, Yıldız was arrested following her detention on August 29, 2016 over her alleged use of ByLock mobilephone messaging application. Yıldız lost her twins babies in 19th week of her pregnancy on Octotber 6, 2016. However, the whereabouts of the dead bodies of twin babies have been unknown since then.
It was reported that while she was pregnant, Nurhayat Yıldız was kept along with 25 other female inmates in a prison cell in Sinop which is supposed to fit only 8 people. After the tragedic event Yıldız has started to suffer psychological trauma and barely talks, said her family members.
Nurhayat Yıldız was reportedly detained after one of her cousin reported her to the police over her alleged links to the Gülen movement. Among the evidence the prosecutor overseeing the case mentioned to demand her arrest are her alleged use of ByLock mobilephone messaging application and $1 bills that police seized during a raid to her house. However, Yıldız said she has never downloaded ByLock.
Turkish authorities consider ByLock to be the top communication tool among the followers of the faith-based Gülen movement, which is accused by the Turkish government of masterminding a failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016. Tens of thousands of civil servants, police officers and businessmen have either been dismissed or arrested for using ByLock since the failed coup attempt.
Turkish government also claims that one dollar bills are an encrypted messaging system among members of the Gülen movement. Yıldız has said the seized $1 notes were the ones that were scattered during her brother’s wedding. It is a common tradition that guests as well as the parents of the marrying couples or children spray banknotes over the heads of people dancing during wedding or circumcision ceremonies.
Under arrest for 298 days, Yııldız was expected to appear in her third hearing on June 23.
More than 17,000 women in Turkey, many with small children, have been jailed in an unprecedented crackdown and subjected to torture and ill-treatment in detention centers and prisons as part of the government’s systematic campaign of intimidation and persecution of critics and opponents, a new report titled “Jailing Women In Turkey: Systematic Campaign of Persecution and Fear” released in April by SCF has revealed.
Turkey survived a controversial coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that killed over 240 people. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.
Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting participants of the Gülen movement in jails.
At least 161,751 people were detained or investigated and 50,334 people were arrested in Turkey in the framework of the Turkish government’s massive post-coup witch hunt campaign targeting alleged members of the Gülen movement since the controversial coup attempt on July 15, 2016, according to statistics reported by state-run Anadolu news agency by basing on information taken from the officials from Turkey’s Justice Minsitry on June 13. (SCF with turkeypurge.com) June 23, 2017
