Elif Coşkun, who just gave birth on Monday night in Turkey’s western province of İzmir, will reportedly be taken into custody at the hospital due to her links to the faith-based Gülen movement, according to an opposition deputy.
Raising concerns about the situation of Coşkun from his Twitter account, main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) İstanbul deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu asked Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım: “Is it true that Elif Coşkun, who gave birth last night in İzmir, will be detained? Is this a humane and ethical attitude?”
Coşkun is not the first mother to face detention immediately after giving birth. Havva Hamamcıoğlu, Nazlı Mert, Esra Demir, Aysun Aydemir, Elif Aslaner and Fadime Günay are only some of the women who also faced detention shortly after delivery as part of a post-coup witch-hunt targeting alleged members of the Gülen movement.
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 report titled “Jailing Women In Turkey: Systematic Campaign of Persecution and Fear” released in April by SCF has revealed.
Turkey survived a military coup attempt on July 15 that killed over 240 people. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip 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 them in custody.
According to a report by the state-run Anadolu news agency on May 28, 154,694 individuals have been detained and 50,136 have been jailed due to alleged Gülen links since the failed coup attempt.