Press Statement

It is a typically cold day in January 2017. Nagihan Gökçek, a mother of five, drives to Sincan prison in Ankara to visit her husband, Abdullah. When she enters the prison, she is detained, and her children are left alone in the car for hours. A video shows one of her children opening the car door in the prison parking lot, showing his brothers crying inside. In tears, he says, “We are five brothers, left alone. We have a disabled brother. I commend those people to God’s punishment.” One of her children has Down syndrome. Later that day a relative picks up the children from the cold car in the prison parking lot.

By the end of August 2017, six hundred sixty-eight (668) children under the age of six are in jails across Turkey with their mothers, detained or arrested as part of the government crackdown on the Hizmet Movement. One hundred forty-nine (149) of these children are infants under a year old.

As we look at Turkey and the Turkish communities around the world today, we’re confronted with an uncomfortable but undeniable truth: Thousands of children’s lives are currently shattered for no other reason than the family or the circumstances into which they were born.

As this release shows, unless the relentless assault on dissent in the country and abroad is not stopped immediately, the future of hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged and vulnerable children– and therefore the future of the society-- will be imperilled. This discrimination and violence against communities and families means these children will not have the opportunity for an education nor the chance to earn a decent living and positively contribute to their respective communities.

The unlawful constraints confronting these children are neither technical nor a matter of resources. They are a matter of political commitment, and the Turkey’s government crackdown on dissent. It is imperative to join forces and make it a priority to end discrimination and ensure that hundreds of thousands of children are not left behind.

Children have the right to a standard of living that is good enough to meet their physical and mental needs. Governments should help families and guardians who cannot afford to provide this, especially regarding food, clothing, and housing.

We are particularly concerned about the situation of the 668 children under the age of 7, who according to the Justice Ministry (August 2017), are being held in Turkish prisons along with their mothers. We estimate149 of these children in prison are under 1 year old; 140 are 1 year old; 124 are 2 years old; 117 children, 3 years old; 77 children, 4 years old; 44 children, 5 years old; and 6 children, 6 years old, the ages of the remaining 11 being unknown. According to the Ministry of Justice, 344 of the children imprisoned along with their mothers are boys and 324 are girls.

Today, 28 of the October and we will do anything we can to stop this crime and witch hunt and we would like to create a world with love, peace and full of life for our children.



Thank you for your support.

Brochures

#668BabiesBehindBars(video)

Prepared Brochure for October 28

Contacts to Pakistan Officials

Example Request Letter for #FreedomToKaçmazFamily

contact@molaw.gov.pk, solicitorgeneral@molaw.gov.pk, zufpak@gmail.com, InfoDesk@ohchr.org, civilsociety@ohchr.org, dexrel@ohchr.org

Dear Honorable Official,

On the night of 27 September 2017, Mesut Kaçmaz and his family were kidnapped, despite being under UN protection in Pakistan.

Congressman Mr Syed Ali Riza Abidi has raised the issue of the kidnapping of the Kaçmaz family and said that we must all endeavour to do something about the injustice.

Around 15 strangers dressed as ordinary civillians in Pakistan kidnapped the Kaçmaz family. We all want to know exactly what happened to this family, as they were taken without any trial, judgement or official papers.

Kidnapping is an international crime. Furthermore, we want to learn of this innocent family's whereabouts as Mesut Kaçmaz and his family are of Turkish origin; our people, whose only aim is to be qualified teachers that teach people about, and guide people through life. We don’t want to simply abandon these people. And we are now also worried about other Turkish teachers and their families in Pakistan. We want them to be transferred to a safer country as soon as possible.

In Turkey and in other countries, many Turkish citizens have been kidnapped. We cannot keep silent about this issue and we want justice!

Those who have been kidnapped must be released immediately. We await a response from officials in Pakistan providing an explanation of what has happened to the Kaçmaz family, and what measures are being put in place for other families like them facing similar danger and injustice.

We kindly request your help in upholding justice for those who have been denied it.

Regards.

From Hospital to Prison

July 15, 2016, has gone down to history as a coal-black day. That night, one of the terrifying theatre play of human history was on stage in Turkey. In fact, the first statement came from the President Recep Tayyip ERDOĞAN; He found the organizers and criminals of the coup, during the military coup attempt and called them F..... terrorist organization in his statement. While there were 260.000 constables, innocent and defenseless native people were confronted and slaughtered by the ones who are responsible for the treacherous theatrics military coup. The innocent community, unaware of the peril, and the soldiers followed their commanders to death were caused to be offended to each other. That night, 248 of our people were slaughtered, 2196 were injured. The movement which had served worldwide, representatives of peace in the countries it has been, follows universal humanitarian values, has been accepted by 170 countries and opened schools that were branded as a ‘bloody terror organization’ and a high percentage of the community were convinced to this.

After the coup attempt, the numbers of the people whose lives were made miserable are terrifying: 75.000 prisoners and 160.000 expelled. Keeping silence during all of these condemns was another issue. People who are an opponent to the governmental actions from every kind of category were waiting for their turn.

In order to escape from tyranny, tens of thousands of families had to do nothing but to leave their lives behind and move abroad. They sought asylum from the countries they moved. For some of them, it was an exile. For some of them, it was a hejira.

We are all in the situation of mobilizing in order to proclaim all these victimizations to world press by influential activities on social media. To annunciate the victimization to all countries, we are planning to walk for an hour with as much as people we find on the same day and time.

668 babies have been taken directly to the prison as soon as they were born. Our first activity is for the mothers with babies. From hospital to prison. Activity will end up in the cities’ important public squares.

As John F. Kennedy says, children are the world's most valuable resource and its best hope for the future. In Turkey, the most valuable valuable resources of our world are thrown away in order to create wrong ones. And again in Turkey, the best hopes of our future are growing up unhealthy. If we won't do anything today, these pure innocent souls will fade away and only darkness will rule this world.

With the hope of meeting on days full of activities…

Within the State of Emergency in Turkey, 668 Babies are in Prison

Since April 2017 number of the children in prison (the word ‘baby’ is not in use in the literature so for children in ages 0-6 in prison are called ‘children’) increased from 560 to 700 just in four months.

Women who newly gave birth and about to give birth are specially arrested by officials. During baby birth, police wait in front of the door and arrest the women after a short while from the birth. Puerpera women are imprisoned with their babies.

This issue came to the fore by hashtag #668BabiesBehindBars with congresswoman of Party of Republican People, Gamze AKKUS’s statistics.

Besides, a petition on change.org with hashtag is started. The aim was to reach Ministry of Justice. Ahile reaching tens of thousands, Ministry of Justice of Turkey didn’t even put in the agenda. Almost everyday, a puerpera woman is taken to prison from hospital. On top of everything, AKP jurisdiction obviously targets pregnant women to imprison in last four months. The government prefers to deny all of these.

On August, Grand National Assembly of Turkey’s Justice Commission Member and congressman of AKP in Bartın Yılmaz TUNC answered the questions from BBC Türkçe . He said that the news about imprisoned women with babies were wrong and there was no application to the Justice Commission about the issue and continued his words:

‘’The perception tried to create in care of international law indicates that there is a persecution on imprisoned women in Turkey. All are nothing but agitations of the arrested people’s situations against Turkey and just a dark propaganda. ‘’

Babies’ situations in prisons are heartrending. As a result of emergency state law, beds for babies are not available. Diapers and wipes are not been giving on the time. There is no supplementary food, milk is almost impossible to get. They have no toys to play, in many cities toys are not given to children. Not only toys, one the families whose relative had been arrested wished to send a pacifier for the baby with shipment. But it wasn’t given by the officials.

Babies live in the cells with overall capacity. So even the area they can crawl is not enough. Hundreds of babies are in unhealthy situations, terrified by other prisoners. Most of them can’t talk. If they are sick they are not getting the cure. They are not taken to the hospital on time. Even if they are taken, they are not with their mothers. Babies themselves are trying to survive with their small bodies.

What Do Law Say About Child Arrest?

The applicable law of Criminal Execution no.5275 says ‘’Prison sentence is put back for the women who are pregnant or six months or less puerpera.’’

Besides this, the United Nations Convention on the Right of the Child and many other international conventions and Constitution of Turkey’s 41^st clause are violated. The 41^st clause of Constitution of Turkey says ‘’Every child has the right of being protected, cared and making bound with parents and keep in touch with them for long unless if it causes high benefit to the parents. Government takes protection for every kind of abuse and violent.’’

Furthermore, mothers of the 700 babies in prison have no crime, no obvious crime, most of them even don’t have an indictment. It’s nothing less than mercilessness to put women in prisons with their babies without crime, even indictment. Turkey’s current directors are darkening the futures of their country’s future.

Waiting for a solution from the officials would be just an endless optimism. Within the TUIK statistics, the numbers of the pregnant women and the women lost their babies as a matter of prison situations have to be published but TUIK’s attitude shows us there is a neglect of duty. Hiding this information from public and sweep it under the mat is nothing but constituting a crime. Rules of law are ignored. The government doesn’t apply the rules of law, moreover, it changes the current laws for its benefit with the name of ‘state of emergency’.

What to Do?

Nowadays there are too much Turkish citizens living abroad. The first thing to do is to inform the United Nations representative about the situation. Legislation officers are the ones who disobey.  This victimization must be acquainted with concrete evidences, specially by the media.

Building a platform and moving together would be a better way to have a quick result.

Having the target of reaching the same place, when reacting, would make it more memorable for worldwide public. As long as we don’t stand back looking for solutions for our rights and freedom.

Last words; mothers who have babies between 0-6 ages must be have trials without arrestment.