Detained hours after giving birth at a private hospital in İstanbul early on Tuesday, a woman named Ayşe Kaya has been transferred to a police station in Edirne, a northwestern province some 240 kilometers from home.
According to tweets posted by main opposition Republican People’s Party deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu, the 30-year-old woman gave birth to a baby at the private Eslife Hospital in İstanbul’s Esenyurt district early on Tuesday and was transferred to Edirne after being detained by police with her newborn baby later the same day as part of an investigation into the faith-based Gülen movement.
“Why would not you interrogate a woman who gave birth yesterday through the SEGBIS system? Why would she be transferred to Edirne with her baby? What is with this hostility towards your own citizens?” the deputy tweeted on Wednesday.
The Turkish government has systematically been detaining women on coup charges either when they are pregnant or shortly after giving birth. This incident is the second in a week and 16th in the past nine months.
On Monday, a group of police officers detained Derya Gül hours after she gave birth at Avrupa Hospital in the southern province of Adana.
Dozens of human tragedies in Turkey have been reported, part of the government witch-hunt against the Gülen movement, which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accuse of being behind a failed coup last year.
Turkey survived a military coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that killed 249 people and wounded more than a thousand others. Immediately after the putsch, the AKP government along with Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement, inspired by US-based Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.
The movement denies the accusations.