Aysun Aydemir, an English teacher who was jailed with her three-day-old baby on Monday, has been released but placed under house arrest with an electronic bracelet on her ankle.
Aydemir was detained three days after she gave birth to a baby in an elective caesarean procedure at a Zonguldak hospital as part of an investigation into the Gülen movement on May 15. Police took her into custody from the hospital despite the fact that she was barely able to walk due to the surgery.
The judge overseeing Aydemir’s case put her in pre-trial detention along with her newborn baby the same day.
According to main opposition Republican Peoples’ Party’s (CHP) Zonguldak deputy Şerafettin Turpçu, the judge turned her pre-trial detention into house arrest with Aydemir confined to her home with an electronic ankle tracking bracelet.
Aydemir’s imprisonment with her newborn baby led to a public outcry.
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 the Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) has revealed.
Turkey survived a military coup attempt on July 15 that killed over 240 people and wounded more than a thousand others. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.
The movement denies any involvement.
According to a statement from Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ on May 6, 149,833 people have been investigated and 48,636 have been jailed as part of an investigation targeting the Gülen movement since the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey.