Twenty-eight-year-old S.A.K. was detained on Thursday while visiting her husband, under arrest over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, which the government accuses of masterminding a July 15, 2016 coup attempt.
According to the Kronos news website, the woman went to Osmaniye Prison to visit her husband M.K., who has been held in pretrial detention since early August 2016. When she entered the prison, she was detained by security guards as part of an investigation launched by the Konya 2nd High Criminal Court.
The woman was detained on suspicion of membership in the Gülen movement.
In a currently ongoing government crackdown on alleged and real members of the movement, dozens of women have been detained while visiting their imprisoned husbands in past months, with their children either separated from them and given to family members or taken to jail with the mothers.
In late January, after a story broke about five children left alone in front of Sincan Prison in Ankara as their mother was detained while they were visiting their father, 856 people around the world raised $41,850 in a week as the elder brother shared a video, saying in tears: “We are five brothers, left alone. We have a handicapped brother. I commend those people to God’s punishment.”
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 Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement, inspired by US-based Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.
The movement denies the accusation. (Turkey Purge)